


Harry Janus Potter - Dances With Destiny by R2R4L

by Krysseh



Category: Battlestar Galactica (1978), DCU (Comics), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Smallville, Star Wars - All Media Types, Stargate - All Media Types
Genre: Ascension, F/M, Furlings (Stargate), Magic, Multiple Crossovers, Powerful Harry Potter, Smart Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 239,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krysseh/pseuds/Krysseh
Summary: AU cross-over Harry Potter/Stargate. Super-Harry.Harry ends up absorbing the memories and abilities of Janus and Voldemort when he is 9 and gets sent by the Others to the ancient ship Destiny. He returns on a quest to conquer the universe, his way. Encounters the Goa'uld, Wraith, Furling, Skrull, Kryptonians, BSG Colonials, and Star Wars. Major retconning. Pairings: Harry/Hermione
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I did not write this story. I just copied it over from FanFiction.Net.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Stargate, or anything you may find in my story that in any way resembles a character, story, or plot that is owned by another person.

Review Responses, if any, are at the end of the chapter.

Harry Janus Potter

Chapter 1

Harry Janus Potter

A being of pure light and energy watched patiently for the events to unfold that he had foreseen (1).

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off -" Janus heard the baby's father James, yell from downstairs.

"Ah, it begins. Time to make ready." thought Janus, as he hovered invisibly in his energy form over Harry's crib near the ceiling, watching and waiting...

Janus watched the baby's mother Lily run into the room and slam the door yelling "Colloportus," as she stood in front of the crib taking a defensive posture.

The door burst open - and Voldemort loosed a cackle of high-pitched laughter.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" yelled Lily.

"Stand aside you silly girl … stand aside now." Voldemort said.

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead - " begged Lily.

"Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy… " added Lily with a sob.

Shrill laughter filled the air as Voldemort aimed his wand at Lily and said, "Avada Kedavra."

"Here it comes, 'must time this perfectly." thought Janus.

Voldemort aimed his wand at the baby and yelled, "Avada Kedavra."

There was a green flash of light that hit Harry's forehead followed by a large backlash of zero point energy. As this occurred Voldemort disintegrated leaving nothing but his clothing and a wand laying on the floor. Simultaneously, Janus touched Harry on the cut made on his forehead, and finding the strange pocket of life energy embedded inside Harry's life energy as he expected, Janus leapt into it and with no fanfare absorbed the memories and destroyed the fragment of Voldemort's life energy. Thus leaving Janus' life energy safely ensconced in Harry.

Elsewhere in the cosmos in a higher plane of existence several other ascended beings noticed the small temporary tear in subspace-time that occurred in the nursery of Godric's Hollow and turned their gaze upon it for a moment. It dissipated and it appeared that whatever caused the phenomenon had already gone. Shrugging celestial shoulders they paid it no further mind, and went about the regular business of ignoring everything that goes on in the lower planes of existence.

The last thing Harry remembered was seeing a bright flash of green light, hearing a shrill voice laughing and a woman screaming.

Unbeknownst to Harry, a few moment later, buried in a layer deeper than his sub-conscious in a place he would not discover exists for a very long time...

Janus whispered "There, there little Harry... Everything will be alright now...I am going to stay with you but I will remain asleep for a long time waiting for the right moment to awaken within you..."

Spring 1990

Contrary to what Janus intended when he began his caper, at age 9 Harry accidentally absorbed all of Janus' life energy and memories which included Voldemort's as well, effectively ending Janus' life as an individual. It appears that even the ascended cannot defeat the law of unintended consequences. This occurred as a result of Harry briefly dying from a beating and drowning attempt by his uncle. When Harry's heart stopped temporarily, the Horcrux energy dissipated and Harry resuscitated automatically.

Vernon, realizing what he'd almost done. Took Harry out of the tub he tried to drown him in and locked him in the cupboard under the stairs, where Harry started recovering and finally fell asleep. Absorbing Janus' didn't make Harry into an ascended but it altered his physiology as close to it as it could while remaining in his physical form. His body became fully healed and his DNA purified and uplifted to a fully evolved Alteran overnight; his brain function and magical core were at maximum potential.

At the moment that Harry's body finished absorbing Janus' ascended life energy, the others noticed when Harry temporarily flashed into the pure energy form of an ascended for a moment, effectively ascending himself - and then returned immediately back to his physical form, albeit a brand new and improved version. One of leaders of the Council of Ascended named Nero summoned Harry through the planes to have his situation assessed and dealt with.

"Janus, did you actually think you could get away with this, 'merging' with a human without being noticed?"

"Well, I did for almost 8 years. I actually merged with Harry when he was a baby. Unfortunately the events of Harry's death at the hands of his Uncle just now caused me to act rashly and risk revealing myself in order to save both of our lives." said Janus-Harry.

"Well Janus, your merging is now complete, your individuality is lost to Harry as he is the dominant mind now. He will retain your memories and your abilities and you will live on only through him." replied Nero.

"However Harry, your fate will be one of our choosing, not what Janus appeared to have in mind for you. When you wake up tomorrow morning you will find yourself aboard the lost Alteran ship Destiny in a galaxy 700,000,000 light years from Earth." continued Nero.

"Will I ever be able to come home to Earth?" asked Harry.

"What you do with your life after we send you to Destiny is up to you. We will not interfere with your path from here on out. This change of plans is a form of punishment for Janus for having circumvented our rules on non-interference." answered Nero.

"So after I get to Destiny, if I can figure out how to get home you will not interfere with me?" asked Harry for clarification.

"Yes, that is correct. We do not normally interfere at all. We are doing only this much in reaction to Janus' actions. We are not over-reacting because you are merged with him and any harsher action we could take with him would impact you more so. Do not fret, you may find that this opens up new opportunities for you." replied Nero.

"So, you don't think sending me to a 50,000,000 year old probably beaten up old space ship with no supplies for human sustenance 700,000,000 light years from my home world is not a death sentence for me?" asked Harry.

"No, it should not be. We all know that it is still out there and in essential operating condition as well as you do now. It may be a little worse for wear but we know that with the knowledge you just inherited and that resource, it will be your choices and your decisions that determine that." answered Nero.

"Now - sleep." said Nero.

The next morning Harry woke up and felt like a new person. Naturally, since he was a new person. As an inside joke he decided to think of himself as Harry Janus Potter from now on. Now that Harry possessed all of the knowledge of Janus and Voldemort.

The real big difference is that he woke up in a very ascetic looking bedroom with no windows and a large metallic door.

"Ah yes." Harry thought. "He did say I would be sent to the ancient ship Destiny. What a crap sandwich." thought Harry.

The first thing Harry thought after that was "Damn, that reminds me, I'm hungry. Where am I gonna get food? This was an unmanned voyage. Nero didn't exactly answer that question." he thought.

Harry concentrated and created a copy of Janus' memories and then projected Janus as an astral projection into the room so he would have someone to talk to, even if it was essentially just a part of himself.

"Okay Janus, you got me into this mess. You can help me get this ship sorted out." Harry said.

"I'm sorry Harry. I don't know what you expect me to do. I am only a copy of my old self and you know everything I do." replied Janus.

"I know. But I can't be traveling across the universe without someone or something to talk to. You can just be there for me to vent at, you don't have to comment unless you want to or think it's useful. I just don't want to be all alone. Okay? So just follow me around and be my imaginary friend or something." replied Harry.

"Alright, first thing is that whatever the destiny of Destiny was, that's done. I was sent here for punitive reasons and at the same time told that what I do now is entirely up to me. This is my ship now, we'll see what I can make of it. Well, besides the immediate need of life support, food and water. I want to return home to Earth. So, that is the master plan." said Harry.

Harry possessed the knowledge of this ship thanks to Janus ascended knowledge so he didn't waste any time making his way to the bridge and taking full control of Destiny, assigning himself as Supreme Commander of the ship, and forming an audible and neural interface to the ship's AI.

"Destiny, Supreme Commander over-ride - disable automatic pilot and ship trajectory for the primary mission. The primary mission is canceled. Confirm over-ride and come to a full-stop as soon as it is safe to do so." ordered Harry.

"Primary mission over-ride confirmed. Destiny is coming to full-stop." replied Destiny.

"Destiny, report from the scans along your past trajectory the nearest habitable world that conversely is still not inhabited which has been seeded with a stargate, that has rich supplies of neutronium, naquadah, and trinium, with a star suitable for recharging our stellar matter generators and give me the ETA for arrival from our current position." ordered Harry.

A moment later:

"The nearest planet meeting specified search parameters is an uninhabited Class M planet designated planet 0FFX50001543 at an ETA from start of FTL jump of 36 hours." replied Destiny.

"That will have to do." said Harry.

"Destiny, redesignate planet 0FFX50001543 as Procul. Do we have enough power to make it to the photosphere of Procul's star in order to regenerate our batteries?" asked Harry.

"Yes." answered Destiny.

"Destiny, plot a course to Procul's star and upon arrival immediately begin power regeneration sequence. Upon completion of regeneration, immediately proceed to orbit of Procul and then wake me from stasis." ordered Harry.

"Orders confirmed, Destiny will enter FTL in 3 hours, ETA to Procul's star is 39 hours." replied Destiny.

"Ah yes, I forgot about the FTL cool-down period. No problem. A little exploration, then to stasis for the bulk of the trip. I don't know what these 'Others' intended by this but I'm going to surprise a lot of people." said Harry.

"Destiny, run full diagnostics of the ship's hull integrity, and all major systems and subsystems and report." ordered Harry, as he walked to the room that creates the sensor drones (someone might call them kinos).

"The ships stellar matter batteries have reduced capacity due to wear and damage and can only hold a charge of 40% of their original capacity. One of the 16 FTL drives is damaged and offline. The ship currently has several hull breaches due to ancient combat damage that are sealed by force fields, the adjacent compartments are likewise sealed requiring over-ride to enter. Life support is in poor repair-estimate only 640 hours of breathable oxygen remaining to sustain the one current life form aboard, CO2 scrubbers need to be repaired and new filtering materials acquired and installed to restore them to full operation. Currently there are only two of the original complement of 3 shuttles. There are 90,000 liters of water in the ships hold but no food. Several of the stasis pods are in various states of poor repair, but 50 are in full operational order." answered Destiny.

With Harry having arrived in the sensor drone room he instructed the system to produce 100 drones. After that was accomplished he programmed them via the ship's AI to remain linked to the AI and begin a pattern of monitoring patrols throughout the entire ship and set them on their way.

Having done that he worked with the ship's AI to reprogram and re-configure the sensor drone construction device to instead generate a large supply of the Ancient maintenance robot's that came with the Destiny ship spec.

"Destiny, as new maintenance robot's are constructed, immediately link them to your maintenance sub-routines and begin deploying them to repair all ships systems and hull breaches that do not require the ship to exit FTL to facilitate." ordered Harry.

"Orders confirmed, ship maintenance cycle to begin immediately." replied Destiny.

Harry then proceeded to the hydroponics bay and working with a few of the first constructed maintenance robots got it up to full working order in preparation for automatically sustaining a supply of the veggie food he was going to obtain on Procul.

Harry felt the ship jump to FTL.

With his preliminary preparations underway, Harry proceeded to the stasis bay and entered himself into stasis, pre-programmed to awaken him in the event his life signs dropped to dangerous levels or in 72 hours in case the AI failed to do so for some reason.

...

53 hours later.

Harry is awoken from stasis by the AI.

"Supreme Commander, Destiny has completed regeneration of our power supplies and is now in orbit of Procul." announced Destiny.

"Good. Thank you Destiny. I know you don't need to hear it but great job." replied Harry.

"Janus you can wake up and start following me around again, old buddy." said Harry.

"Alright, I like it when a plan comes together. It feels like I just missed breakfast and it's going on lunch time. I've had much worse days unfortunately." said Harry.

"Harry, I think you should visit the cafeteria and at least hydrate with plenty of water. That is something you should do regularly anyway, but after stasis it is an important recommended activity." said Janus.

"Thanks, that is a good idea." replied Harry.

As Harry made his way to the cafeteria he asked Destiny for an update on maintenance since the ship had over 2 days to work on that while he slept.

"All major repair items are still open issues either due to inability to perform tasks while in FTL or lack of materials. However, the life support system has been fully repaired and cleaned, it only lacks the new materials necessary to re-fill the CO2 scrubber's filters. All stasis pods except for one have been fully repaired. All other systems have had full cleaning and preventive maintenance operations performed and the affected systems are now restored to full operating efficiency. All water in storage has been re-purified and all plumbing and human interface systems have been cleaned and sterilized." answered Destiny.

"Well that is good timing considering I'm about to get a drink of that water." mused Harry.

"Destiny, now that we are out of FTL, instruct the maintenance robots to begin all hull repairs and restore access to all ships compartments as soon as it is safe to do so." ordered Harry.

"Orders confirmed, maintenance cycle has begun."

"Destiny, how many maintenance robots have been produced so far?" asked Harry.

"106" answered Destiny.

"Good. Cease production or robots and use the ones you have." ordered Harry.

"Orders confirmed." answered Destiny.

Harry got his drink of water, a full 2 liters worth per Janus recommendation then proceeded to the robot construction room and re-programmed the machine to alternatively produce three new types of robots, one mining robot, one refining robot, and one transportation robot; the latter of which will be responsible for bringing new materials back to the ship's working areas or cargo holds. These robots were a bit more complicated and larger than the others so instead of producing one every 30 minutes, he would only get one per hour, or one full set of 3 every 3 hours.

He would need a supply of them built up before he could do any serious work anyway, so he just let that run on automatic for awhile.

"Destiny, re-scan Procul and confirm there is no sentient life there." ordered Harry.

"Scans complete. Confirmed, no sentient life on Procul." answered Destiny.

"Wonderful. Destiny, prepare course for entry into Procul's atmosphere and for a landing 100 yards from the planet's stargate." ordered Harry.

"Course plotted, ship is ready for landing protocol." answered Destiny.

"Destiny, land the ship at the coordinates established in the last command." ordered Harry.

"Order confirmed. Landing procedure in progress, entry into the atmosphere to commence in 10 minutes." answered Destiny.

With that underway, Harry made his way to the supply lockers he now had access to that were inaccessible previously and donned a full Alteran encounter suit, a hand-held pulse laser pistol, and a neural headband communication device for remote command and control of the ships AI. He summoned 90 of his 100 sensor drones and linked them to his neural headband.

...

After the Destiny landed, Harry departed the ship with his swarm of sensor drones following him. Took a breath of real fresh air for the first time in days and set to work. He instructed 64 of his sensor drones to form a perimeter around the Destiny and stargate area out to 1000 meters radius from the center of his encampment and set them to continuously monitor to provide him an early warning of any approaching dangerous activity and any anomalous activity within the circle, his new safe zone.

He then took 18 of the remaining sensor drones, divided them up into 3 packs of 6 each and set them to establish visual contact based on the coordinates from Destiny's scanners and then continuous monitor the areas he intends to mine for of each of the three main mineral deposits he will need: neutronium, naquadah, and trinium.

Now it was time for some of Voldemort's knowledge of magic and wandless skill to serve Harry.

Harry conjured a campsite with a grill for cooking and a campfire, along with all the necessary tables, cooking, and eating implements he would need. He would not sleep outside, in case there are unknown dangers that could surprise him at night. But he would be as comfortable and practical as possible while living and working on this planet.

Next, Harry used set his remaining 8 sensor drones to remain in a swarm around him at 10 feet at all times.

With these basics up and running Harry ventured outside his safe perimeter and used his personal sensor drones to help him find some game food roaming around, which he quickly dispatched with Diffindo spells. He likewise magically gathered up a number of edible plants and what appeared to be fruits and took them back to his campsite to make his first lunch/dinner in many days. Fortunately there were plenty of magic spells to quickly clean and prepare the game for cooking, same with the veggies and fruits. Harry found a natural onion plant which he was able to make use of for a little spice and flavor; for the rest he just transfigured them. Gamp's law did not restrict him from transmuting one food type into something more palatable and enjoyable, it just prevented him from creating food out of thin air from nothing. The transmuted food still maintained the properties of the original, so he was careful to use meet for his meats, and various veggies and fruits similarly; but he was able to make it all look and taste like a feast of steak, potatoes, and mixed vegetables; with a side of bread and butter. With water transmuted into coca-cola. Or at least that's what his taste buds thought it was. Naturally he had the Destiny's scanners confirm that it was all safe for human consumption before he used any of it. And there were several items he had to dispose of. Good enough.

This all having taken several hours he commanded the Destiny AI to begin sending to him the newly completed mining, refining, and transport robots to him as they were completed. The first three, one of each type made their way to him. He dispatched the first mining robot to begin construction of the neutronium mine. That is his priority mineral at the moment. He dispatched the transport robot to link to the neutronium miner and prepare to automatically shuttle the raw ore back to the encampment. He dispatched the refining robot to begin construction of a small refining operation for neutronium.

With this task underway, Harry returned to the outskirts of his encampment and gathered up living plants of the most useful veggie plants and what he thought he could harvest seeds from certain fruits for, but that process will take a bit longer to kick off in his hydroponics lab. Filling a bottomless bag he conjured, he brought enough plants to fill up his first hydroponics bay.

Whilst doing all this work, Destiny sent him new sets of robots for his mining operation and he set the first two new sets into similar tasks to begin his naquadah and trinium mining operations. From there on, he had Destiny's AI automatically manage the process of adding new robots into their assigned functional work areas until the process got up to a critical mass needed for full operation that he determined. So that he could begin to focus on his next set of tasks.

As night fall was approaching he returned to the safety of Destiny and attended to the task of setting up his hydroponics lab with all the soil and plant life he collected and turned the system on. The Destiny AI will manage this hydroponics bay from now on ensuring optimal efficiency. After about a month, this bay would produce enough raw food materials daily to sustain his daily diet and over time he would be able to begin stockpiling supplies as well as production got really going. He would live with transmuting these materials into what he considered palatable foods and living on essentially a veggie diet, augmented by whatever meats he will occasionally go out and catch while he is still on the planet.

After a good first day, he turned over his encampment monitoring network to the Destiny AI while he turned in. First he commandeered a stately room that he conjured the best bedding, linens, and other comforts that he could think of.

...

The next day...

Destiny reported no perimeter breaches and no other anomalous activity within their compound.

When Harry went to sleep, his mining operation had 2 full sets of each type of robot for each mineral operation. Destiny informed him that the operation was now running with 6 sets of robots and processing was beginning to occur in measurable quantities at their refinery operation and that small stockpiles of the raw ore were beginning to build up.

With that going smoothly, Harry returned to his campsite and hunted and gathered and transmuted himself a full breakfast, then inspecting his mining operations in person just to see for himself. He was pleased with the progress and returned to the Destiny to begin work on his next phase, building his scientific and construction labs to build what he intends to build with all of this.

The goal? - By the time Harry is done, he is going to have transformed the Destiny into a ship with all the technological ability of the City of Atlantis herself, minus the bits he wouldn't have room for of course. That will come later. This will be major upgrades and refits across the board. As it was now, he had already restored Destiny to its full operating condition since it landed, having the maintenance robots with the materials they needed finish repairing the entire ships systems. All was going to per plan in Harryland.

This operation continued for weeks and for months. Harry eventually stopped constructing mining robots because the operation was up to full swing. As enough refined materials of each major component came up to par he designed and built by hand the first of his new series of neutronium-naquadah-trinium alloy nanites. He formed a neural interface with the parent nanites and slaved them all to his command via DNA. He gave them near full consciousness capability save that they were slaved to him and him alone and could not harm another human being unless he commanded them to. With that established, he ordered the nanites to self-replicate from the materials he mined.

Linking his nanite swarm to the Destiny AI, he had swarms of them adapt the functionality of the lesser capable Destiny class robots and therefore upgraded and replaced his entire mining operation with nanite constructs. The efficiency of the operation improved a hundred fold.

With that accomplished, he instructed a swarm of the nanites to form themselves into 10 Potentia constructor satellites and launched them into the star. Each would produce 1 Potentia and then return to the Destiny with it's Potentia. This would take another month.

Meanwhile he was able to stop his hunting and gathering daily chores altogether as his hydroponics bay now supplied all the food materials he needed. He didn't even bother to go outdoors anymore, with his intelligent nanites able to handle everything for him, except on the occasion when he fancied some meat in his diet.

Harry instructed a nanite swarm to form itself into a full Lantean class computer core and installed it in the Destiny computer room and transferred all Destiny functions and AI over to it. This was his first major systemic upgrade. With that in place, he used the upgraded command chair to reverse the process of knowledge transfer and transferred an entire copy of his consciousness, his memories, and Alteran knowledge into the computer core. He could not transfer all ascended knowledge as there is no database storage large enough to store such a thing. It was only his ascended modified physiology that allowed him to possess it.

With that done thing began to move along much faster, with mere verbal commands for the most complicated tasks. Harry assigned large amount of nanite constructor swarms to the Destiny AI control and then ordered the Destiny to upgrade it's FTL engines to the latest in Lantean specification, these would be far faster, more reliable, and without the cool-down and minimum time in flight limitations of the original design. He further had the Destiny build and add into it's engine room and add emitters to the rear of the ship for the most advanced Lantean hyper-space drive, and then had the Destiny construct and install the latest of his own design for a reliable working Wormhole drive. That might've been less reliable on a ship the size of Atlantis but it will smoke through inter-galactic travel very safely and reliably for a ship the size of Destiny. Of course, some of these modifications actually made Destiny gain some weight. But who cares?

Next, Harry refitted the power systems of the Destiny to use 3 Potentia in addition to it's stellar matter generators, which he left online because they will still serve as an adequate back up, just in case. He also installed a series of naquadah generators to power certain ship sub-systems in the event of emergency power failure of any of the primary systems. He also re-constructed the stargate and dialing computers to the latest Lantean specs. for full inter-galactic access and the ability to take full control of the gate network in any galaxy he happens to be in.

Harry re-purposed many of the previous living quarters spaces into labs and operational locations for a variety of new systems. One was a drone manufacturing plant, another was a drone storage room that could hold 10,000 drones, and he fitted the ship with 2 drone launchers on each wingtip. He also upgraded all the other weapons from their older designs to the latest Lantean designs for plasma beam weapons, pulse anti-fighter batteries. Then upgraded all the shields to the Atlantis spec, powered by the Potentia, and added the latest cloaking device, scanners, sub-space communications, matter transporters, and all other major and minor systems and sub-systems.

He held off on implementing one of his time travel devices on Destiny, but the idea wasn't off the table. It really wasn't necessary right now and for a ship this size would burn a lot of power. One enhancement he decided on since he was all alone is that he created a clone body of himself stored in stasis. The Destiny AI had instructions that if he should be confirmed dead that it would copy his consciousness and memories that are stored in Destiny's central computer core to the clone to resurrect him, after a fashion.

With all major systems upgraded or newly installed, the shuttles were also fully upgraded with the latest propulsion, shields, cloaks, weapons, transporters, and so forth; and the one missing shuttle platform was rebuilt so the ship was back to its standard complement of three.

The month passed by and finally the Potentia satellites returned to Destiny's new launch bay and Harry recovered his 10 shiny new fully charged Potentia. Most of the new systems on this ship wouldn't work without these, so Harry wasted no time installing three of them and putting the remaining 7 in safe storage.

Destiny then fully powered up, all systems came online. She reported all drives, weapons, shields, and cloaks were fully functional. Full diagnostics were ran and Harry had to make some tweaks here and there since it wasn't possible to fully integration test everything during his upgrades.

Destiny purred like an Atlantis class kitten.

A/N: If in my zest for describing this I forgot to enumerate a specific type of system that I should have or could have named in terms of being upgraded to or added to Destiny per Atlantis spec. assume that it's just a mere oversight because really who can remember everything, and accept that 'its all there' because categorically that is what Harry was trying to do.

Harry was proud.

With several months passing by and his operation on Procul coming to a close, Harry constructed another entire storage room full of inactive nanites for future unspecified use. He then filled three more cargo holds with supplies of refined neutronium, trinium, and naquadah. He refilled all the ships supplies of water, food, and made sure the hydroponics bays were fully stocked.

As a parting gesture to Procul, he first instructed all nanites to disassemble all evidence of the encampment and all specialized bots to return to their specified cargo holds to await future use as needed. He removed all other evidence and then in the tradition of his crazy ancestors he erected an obelisk with the entire alphabet and numerical system of the Alterans, with the only complete writing being the name Procul to identify the planet, and the phrase 'Kilroy was here'.

A/N:

1 He has not foreseen Harry's entire future. He just foresaw this horcrux anomaly that is about to happen that he can take advantage of for his plans. He knows about the magical world and most of the world in general as he has been watching it in secret for thousands of years but, to reiterate he is not clairvoyant to that degree.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harry Janus Potter

With Destiny all set to go, and his encampment packed up and put away, Harry prepared for pre-flight.

"Destiny, given the current location of Procul with astronomic simulation of the estimated position of Earth at this time, please calculate and state the distance and ETA of Destiny to a location equidistant between Earth's star and Proxima Centauri's star if we were to travel there in one wormhole jump." ordered Harry.

"Specified location is 699,870,003 light years away. At full wormhole burn in a single jump it will take 1.598173516 years to reach the destination coordinates." answered Destiny.

"Hmm. I just turned 10 yesterday and got this newly upgraded space ship for my birthday present. This is Aug. 1, 1990, that will get me home in early March 1992 when I am 11 2/3-ish." said Harry.

"Janus, do you think Headmaster Dumbledore will be upset with me for being over 6 months late for school? I wonder if I'll get sent home with a slip for being tardy, or maybe I'll have to do detention or something. I wonder if Destiny would fit on the grounds in front Hogwarts between the front doors and the Black Lake. That would make a spectacle wouldn't it? I wonder if the school charter allows first years to have a nanite swarm for a pet?" asked Harry.

"Okay, I'll play. Yes, no, maybe, probably, yes, and who cares, do it anyway?" replied Janus.

Harry made his way to his upgraded bridge and control chair, sat down to take in the new leather smell and the smell of fresh neural interface gel packs, got himself all comfy and said:

"Destiny, launch and take us into orbit." ordered Harry.

"Launching." answered Destiny.

A few minutes later...

"The ship is in orbit of Procul." announced Destiny.

"Destiny, launch the three social research satellite cluster into orbit of Procul under cloak and establish and maintain inter-galactic sub-space communications with them." ordered Harry.

"Satellites launched, in position, cloaked, and communications are locked." answered Destiny.

"Destiny, take us into the galactic void 2 light years distant from Procul's star, in preparation for wormhole jump as previously instructed." ordered Harry.

Harry saw the ship go into hyper-space from the viewer and the instruments. He felt nothing of course with the upgraded inertia dampeners.

A couple seconds later...

"The ship has exited hyper-space and is at the designated coordinates, ready for wormhole jump." answered Destiny.

"Hmm. Destiny run the wormhole jump simulation again and display the waypoints and ship status projections all along the path one more time on the main viewer." ordered Harry.

"Well, all looks good. According to simulations there are no problems with hull integrity, any internal systems, or power levels throughout the entire trip. It looks like the right answer all along was to scale down the wormhole drive for use on ships much smaller than a city-ship. Ah well, there's nothing else for it. Let's give her a try. It'll either work and all will be well. Or it won't and it'll turn out so bad I probably won't even realize it... or something." mused Harry.

Harry made his way to the stasis bay and said, "Shoot, wait a minute Destiny I need to take a pee before we start this long trip. I don't want to have to ask you to stop and pull over like 300,000,000 light years in or something." mused Harry out loud.

After taking care of his business, he made his way back to the stasis bay and thought, "Maybe I've been talking to myself and my imaginary astral projection for too many months, I think I'm losing my grip."

Harry programmed the stasis chamber to wake him up early for a variety of conditions should they occur and instructed Destiny to wake him once they have arrived at their destination, with shields and cloak up. Since this would be a long stasis sleep, Harry enabled the stasis Virtual Reality AI with full access to the computer core so that he could perform research, planning, simulations, and so forth while he is effectively sleeping. No sense wasting time.

He entered the stasis chamber and just before activating it he said:

"Destiny, engage wormhole jump." ordered Harry.

The last thing Harry heard as he entered stasis was:

"Wormhole drive engaged." answered Destiny.

. . .

1.598173516 years later... March 6, 1992

Destiny disengaged from Wormhole drive, engaged shields and cloak and woke Harry.

'Yaaaawn.' "Are we there already Destiny?" asked Harry.

"The ship has arrived at the specified coordinates." answered Destiny.

"Janus, wake up old buddy, we're here." said Harry.

"So, change of plans then?" asked Janus?

"Just a little." replied Harry.

"During stasis I spent most of my time in VR working on projects and planning for the future. After going over the status of the way you Lanteans left things when you departed this plane of existence, I've decided to gather up some more key assets you all left laying around before I go home and start pretending to be a model student so that I can recruit compatible people for my crew." continued Harry.

"Hmm. I guess before I head off to Pegasus to recover Atlantis I ought to pop in on old Dumbledore to let him know I have not in fact gone on to the next great adventure and to let him know that I will still be a wee bit more late before I can start school. The only question is do I appear in front of the whole student body during mealtime and make a big splash or do I sneak around and wait until Dumbledore is alone to tell him?"

"Well you have sort of gone on to your next great adventure, so you could tell him that." replied Janus.

"That would be a good prank actually since the meaning to him would be rather different than how I would intend it ... or would it? tee, hee, hee. Oh and showing up as a hologram and walking through walls, he would assume I'm a ghost if I don't say differently." continued Harry.

"Well, I'll think about that while I get a checkup by the Emergency Medical Hologram, hydrate and then eat. It's been a long stay in stasis." said Harry.

...

An hour later after Harry is all fed and watered and given a clean bill of health he turned to Janus and said:

"I have decided that I will pop in on the school during their evening meal and have a chat with the Headmaster then. I figure that if I go to him privately it will just serve to feed his ego that he is so important in my life which he already has too high an opinion of, and will also prevent him from keeping the news of my survival or arrival and plans a secret from everyone else. Both are tendencies about that man that I do not like. Or that is, from Voldemort's memories of him, that I too do not like. Other than that though I will play it straight but, I will be a bit vague about what I am specifically doing to keep certain strategic information close to my chest until I decide I want to share it. I see no need to keep my activities in general a secret though." said Harry.

"You're the boss Harry. I'm just your imaginary friend. Do whatever you want." said Janus.

"Thank you other me, I will." replied Harry.

"Destiny, take us to Earth in geosynchronous orbit of Scotland, altitude 2,000 km and remain cloaked at all times." ordered Harry.

"Orders acknowledged." replied Destiny.

Seconds later.

"The ship has arrived at the specified coordinates." reported Destiny.

...

Harry, sporting his Lantean finest High Councilor garb, just to make an impression... appeared as a hologram in front of the doors at the entrance to the Great Hall of Hogwarts during the evening meal.

~there was a bright flash of light~ and a ~transporter sound~

Suddenly there was a commotion as heads turned toward the strange sound and flash of light that shown under the door to the Great Hall for just a second.

"What was that?" several of the students closest to the door were heard to be saying.

"Mr. Filch, if you please could you check what is going on out in the hall?" asked Professor Dumbledore from his seat at the teacher's table.

Mr. Filch went down to the doors and opened them.

"Thank you sir." the young boy said-who could be no older than 12 wearing a strange brown and tan uniform, definitely not Hogwarts attire. "It would have been rude of me to simply walk through your door." continued Harry.

"What are you doing out of your school uniform boy? Don't you know by now that all students are expected to wear proper school attire for the evening meals?" said Mr. Filch.

As there looked to be some kind of trouble brewing that involved disciplining a student, the greasy-haired bat looking teacher decided to get up and make his way down to the doors himself to see to whatever proper child abuse and abuse of authority - I mean, unnecessary discipline meant to stroke the ego of adults with inferiority complexes, is due.

"Well sir, that won't be a problem as I am not a student of this school. I only came to visit the faculty for a moment and then I will be on my way." replied Harry.

"What seems to be the problem Mr. Filch?"

Mr. Filch explained the situation in his own words to Professor Snape.

"So, who are you anyway boy? I almost need to agree with you and I hate agreeing with any of you little brats. I don't recognize you as a student of this school. What is your name?" asked Professor Snape.

"Oh forgive my rudeness sir, my name is Harry Janus Potter."

By this time the entire hall had gone quiet to hear what was going on by the doors and most people picked up Snape's question and the boy's answer.

You could have heard a pin drop. And now every head was turned in his direction.

"Hmm. Messy black hair, emerald green eyes. The same eyes as Lily, and except for the ridiculous pajamas you are wearing I would swear you are the spitting image of that pillock James Potter." said Professor Snape.

"Ah, yes. Severus Snape. I remember you now. If memory serves, my father would return the sentiment. Just out of curiosity, since the disappearance of Voldemort, do you still pretend to be a reformed death eater spy working for Professor Dumbledore or do you still pine away for the return of your long lost master?" replied Harry.

By this point most of the senior faculty could be seen making their way down to the entrance to try to reign in this situation and/or see if any of this is really happening and what to actually make of it. At Harry's question or proclamation, it is difficult to say which that really was, one could hear a gasp of surprise and recognition that seem to come from the strange looking professor in the turban who remained seated at the head table. Hardly anyone noticed though as all attention was being paid to the spectacle playing out by the doors of the Great Hall.

As Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Flitwick made their way down the center aisle of the Great Hall, Harry decided to pointedly ignore the greasy haired bat that was waving his wand around like he was about to cast a spell and he ...

Walked right through him?

And proceeded to greet the Professor's half-way, now also standing in the middle of the Great Hall so that most of the student body now had a good look at the boy.

Everyone once again stopped what they were doing, including the Professor's who's wand hands dropped limply to their sides, their jaws dropped in astonishment. Professor Dumbledore's eye's lost their traditional twinkle.

Gulp... "What has happened to you Mr. Potter? Are you a ghost?" asked Dumbledore quietly. Quietly thinking to himself that this would explain why no one has been able to find hide nor hair of him since he never received his Hogwarts letter and never showed up at the start of this term.

"Oh, goodness no Professor. I am alive and well, fit as a fiddle as I believe they say. I am not actually here at the moment. I am simply projecting myself to you as a hologram from my Battleship currently in orbit of Earth approximately 2000 kilometers above you."

For a second, silence reigned again.

But soon, whispers broke out all over the place. 'The boy has lost his mind.' 'What is he playing at?' 'What a stupid idea for a practical joke, it's not even funny.' to some more open-minded muggle-born who being raised on sci-fi and then found out that 'magic' is real were pondering differently. 'No wonder Harry Potter could defeat the killing curse, he's really an alien.' 'I wonder if he will show us his space-ship?' 'I doubt he's telling the truth, but it is kind of funny. I bet none of these pure-bloods even understand what he said.' and so forth.

A brown-eyed bushy brown-haired girl just sat transfixed in amazement of the boy. "He's so handsome," she thought. "I bet if he's telling the truth he must be very intelligent," and "I can't believe a kid his age even if he is from another planet could have his own space ship. I wonder what is really going on? This is so weird, and so cool!"

"What?" asked Professor McGonagall in as most incredulous voice.

So Harry repeated it slowly like they were very slow or something. "I said... I.. am.. not.. actually.. here.. at the moment. I am simply.. projecting myself.. to you.. as a hologram.. from my Battleship.. currently in orbit.. of Earth.. approximately 2000 kilometers.. above you..."

"Now Mr. Potter, I don't care if you are a ghost or whatever you are, that is no way to speak to an esteemed Professor of this school." said the teeny tiny half-Goblin Professor Flitwick.

"I'm sorry but I thought she didn't understand me or thought I was lying or something." said Harry.

"What are you really doing Mr. Potter? Where have you been? How come no one has been able to find you all year? It is like you weren't even on the planet or something...Ohhhh." asked Professor Dumbledore.

And the penny dropped.

"Well, I really don't want to tell you or the whole world all of my secrets right now. But suffice it to say that what I said is true. The reason I've stopped by is to let you know first that I am alive, because I know that had anyone been looking for me they would have noticed I have been gone from Earth for almost 2 years. I've only just returned. I knew you all would be missing me." began Harry.

"And next is that while I would like to attend Hogwarts in some capacity in the future, I need to go away again for a little while. I have some more business to attend to. This might take the rest of the school year. So, if you still want me to attend this school I could start next year either a year late as a first year as I would've done this year or I could start as a second year with my age-group, if you would allow me at that time to test out of the standard first year curriculum. I can tell you for my part that I would prefer to start next year with my age-group in second year." concluded Harry.

"Perhaps we should take this conversation to my office Mr. Potter. We are interrupting the student's evening meal. We can discuss this more privately and work out the particulars." said Professor Dumbledore.

"No thank you sir. I've actually concluded all the business I came here for. Except there is one more thing I just realized or should I say...discovered. One moment please." and Harry flickered out of existence.

Once again to everyone's astonishment.

Back on the Destiny...

"Destiny, scan the Hogwarts Great Hall and identify the individual that my senses tells me contains two consciousness's, one of which is possessing the other. The individual is sitting at the head table wearing a turban on his head." ordered Harry.

"Scan is complete. I have locked onto the individual. Your senses appear correct, their is an entity possessing the body of the host. It emanates a malevolent energy pattern but I cannot ascertain it's nature." answered Destiny.

"I think I know what is going on. Maintain lock on that person, after I return to the school, on my command raise an Omni-directional level 10 containment field around him and dampen his ZPE abilities so that neither he or the entity can flee." ordered Harry.

"Command acknowledged, standing by." answered Destiny.

~there was a bright flash of light~ and a ~transporter sound~ and this time Harry beamed into the school in the flesh, and standing directly behind and to the side of Professor Quirell.

Everyone saw and heard his beam-in and were astonished to see that he appeared to be in the flesh this time and also standing near Professor Quirell who still sat at the head table.

Professor Dumbledore immediately began to worry as he knew that Professor Quirell was possessed by Voldemort. Somehow Harry must've detected this and planned something. "Why can't the damned boy be more discreet about all of this anyway." Dumbledore thought worriedly to himself.

"Hello professor, would you mind standing up sir?" said Harry politely, implying that he only wished to introduce himself. Although the way he appeared to be going about it was rather odd, but this whole episode with the boy has been quite odd so far. So, "why not?" he thought.

"Certainly young man. It is my pleasure to meet you." As Quirell-mort gestured as if he was going to walk over and shake Harry's hand, Harry mentally commanded Destiny over his neural link, "Destiny, execute."

A shimmering blue and yellow force-field snapped into place around Professor Quirell and he started to reach for the edge of it which was about one foot in any direction surrounding him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. The containment field will give you a nasty shock each time you touch it, and you will not be able to escape. Also, do not bother trying to apparate or use a port-key, or even your wand. Nothing will work. Your access to magic is currently being dampened as well. I want to speak to the malevolent entity possessing you. I suspect your turban may be hiding something to do with this, so..." Harry said-as he waved his hand and the turban vanished.

"Harry, no... you don't know what you're doing..." started Professor Dumbledore as he started back toward the head table with his wand drawn, his professors in tow, with their wands drawn now as well.

The brown-eyed bush-haired girl stared transfixed to this entire thing not believing her eyes. As was everyone else. This was more entertainment than they ever get around here; and for once none of the student body could be blamed for any of it.

Nevertheless, Quirell-mort tried to touch the containment field and let out a loud 'Yelp, oww! dammit!"

"I told you. Now turn around and let's see what's growing out of the back of your head shall we?" said Harry, and he gestured with his hand and forced Quirell-mort to spin around so that now his back was fully toward the main hall and everyone could see the Voldemort 'thing' growing out of the back of his head, of course no one except himself and Dumbledore had correctly guessed exactly what was coming out of the back of Quirell's head yet.

"How are you doing thisss boy? Releassse me or sssssuffer the conssssequences of the wrathhh of Lord Voldemort!" said Voldemort.

The student body and faculty gasped as one. One particular blond haired first year boy in Slytherin House wet his pants and passed out, and they call his girlfriend Pansy.

Professor Dumbledore made his way back up to the head table and caught up to Harry. "Why did you do this in front of this whole school Harry? How did you know? And how and what exactly are you doing in the first place?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"I really don't feel like answering all those questions right now. A lot of it is technical stuff you couldn't even begin to understand. But for part of it lets just say that I could sense there is a foreign entity possessing this man and I had my ship sensors scan him and confirm it then I had my ship place him in this level 10 containment field so that he cannot escape. Do you want to call the Aurors or do you want me to dispose of this enemy spirit for you?" replied Harry.

"You cannot disssspose of me boy. I am all powerful and immortal. I will simply rise again." said Voldemort. To the general creeping out of everyone else in the Great Hall except for Harry and Dumbledore.

"Well, maybe so. Hmm. Given what I know, I believe the best answer is to not dispose of you at the moment, but rather to capture you and keep you out of harms way, everyone else's harms way until I can take the time to finish with you on the whole." said Harry.

"Yes, that will do." continued Harry, as he mentally commanded Destiny to beam Quirell to a holding cell containment pod stasis chamber and while in the process, separate the Voldemort consciousness and energy pattern and materialize it and store it separately in another holding cell containment pod stasis chamber.

~there was another bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~

"Where did he go?" yelled Professor Dumbledore.

"One moment please, I will be right back." said Harry, as he too beamed away back to Destiny to the brig area of his ship.

~there was another bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~ and Harry disappeared.

"Destiny, have you separated and captured both the Voldemort entity and Professor Quirell?" asked Harry.

"Acknowledged. Capture is complete. Both the human and the entity are in stasis induced sleep and all abilities suppressed." answered Destiny.

"Destiny, beam Professor Quirell to a containment pod in the medical bay." Harry ordered.

"Acknowledged" answered Destiny, and Quirell beamed to medical.

Harry followed by beaming himself there.

"Activate the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH)." ordered Harry.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." asked the EMH.

"Heal this man of his physical injuries while serving as the host and under possession of the entity we captured." ordered Harry.

"Acknowledged. Most injuries are superficial except for the modification to his skull and the back of his head. The re-sequencer will repair his head and restore it to what was normal physically before his possession. The mental problems that will be a side-effect of his possession is out of my scope to heal." answered the EMH.

"Very well. Continue and do your best. I am going to return to the school, contact me through the neural link to let me know when he is ready to return to Earth." ordered Harry.

"Acknowledged." answered the EMH.

...

~there was another bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~, and Harry reappeared in the spot he left a few moments ago in the Great Hall. By the time he returned, Dumbledore had dismissed dinner and told everyone to return to their dorms. The hall was in the process of emptying out when he returned.

Those who had not managed to leave yet stopped and turned around to watch what might happen next now that Harry had returned.

"Where is Professor Quirell Mr. Potter?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"I used my ship's matter transporter to beam him and the Voldemort entity to my ship and in so doing used the transporter matter and energy converters to separate the two. I now have the Voldemort entity security in a holding cell within a stasis induced sleep in a containment pod and Professor Quirell is being healed of his injuries and physically at least will return to you momentarily unharmed. He may have some mental health issues remaining from the encounter that I am not equipped to help with so I assume you will attempt to address them." answered Harry.

While Harry was answering Dumbledore, as certain brown-eyed bushy-haired girl was nodding along with the explanation thinking that was what she would have done or rather yeah, "that's what Spock, Kirk, Scotty, and Bones would've done on Star Trek." She giggled to herself.

"Interesting Mr. Potter. I'm not sure I understand a word of what you just said except that you have captured Voldemort in some fashion and you will be returning Professor Quirell to us soon after he finishes a course of some kind of medical healing on your, uhm...space ship? You know also, I must say you don't sound like an 11 almost 12 year old boy. You sound like a fully grown man with several masteries and a lot of experience. How is that my boy?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

If anyone was looking they would've noticed Hermione nodding along with what the Professor said too.

"For the latter I will only say that I will defer that conversation for another time. I may tell you some of that story someday. But your observations are a close approximation of the truth. As for the rest yes. I intend to keep Voldemort alive in his spirit form in stasis until I have the time to gather up all his Horcrux's and destroy them all before I destroy him. That way he will not be able to escape or resurrect himself again. And Professor Quirell should be ready to return soon." answered Harry.

"Mr. Potter, now that you are here I am afraid I need to ask you to stay. I cannot in good conscious allow you to go off on your own again. And it is time for you to attend school, regardless of where you've been holing yourself up for the past couple years." said Dumbledore, as he began to raise his wand.

"Professor. I've tried to be polite and as forthright as I feel wise to be at this time. Please do not presume to hold any authority or even so, any power over me. Unless or until I do decide to attend this school. And even then I assure you that there is nothing you can do, including with all of your magic that can hold me anywhere I do not wish to be. If my demonstrations here today have not been enough already to illustrate this, allow me to bluntly state that I am a whole lot more powerful magically than you, in fact more-so than all of your faculty combined. And if I lacked any solution in magic, you would not believe what my technology can do. What part of Battleship in orbit over your school did you not understand? Never mind, that was stupid of me. Of course you understood none of it. But, I remind you again-you saw everything I just did since arriving here. Do you plan to attack me now?" replied Harry.

"I would not call it attacking you my boy. But an eleven year old boy does not legally have the right to go off on their own doing whatever they wish. While a student of this school you are in loco parentis under my responsibility." replied Dumbledore.

"Ah, I see your point. Well then I guess it is a good thing that I am not a student of this school and your words have just ensured that I likely never will be. Further in regard to your local laws and customs whatever they may be, I'm simply not interested. Unless I choose to be, I am not even a resident or citizen of this planet any longer much less this government or that government. I had hoped to come back and at least participate in this world, to make friends my age, have some fun, live a part of my life here on my home-world. But if all so-called authority figures are going to be like you, arrogant, full of self-importance, and twice as full of ignorance. Perhaps I will just keep my distance...for the most part. I do have things to do on this planet, things I want to do. I suppose I can just do those things going unnoticed and out of reach from now on." said Harry.

"Professor Quirell is healed and ready to return to Earth." reported the EMH over Harry's neural link.

With a thought Harry commanded the EMH to beam Professor Quirell down to where he was before.

~there was another bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~ and Professor Quirell re-appeared.

"There is your Professor Quirell, Headmaster. Fare well." Harry said.

~there was another bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~ and Harry disappeared.

Hermione seeing that the action was over, along with a number of others that nonchalantly stayed to witness all of that...quietly left the room unobserved.

Professor McGonagall turned to Professor Dumbledore and said "You handled that well." with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

...

Back aboard Destiny.

Harry said to Janus: "Well, that went well. God, it's been a long day already. I'm going to get dinner, have a long stress relieving lay in the hot tub and then go to bed.

"Destiny, plot a course for the Lantean system in the Pegasus galaxy, using Wormhole drive, give me an ETA." ordered Harry.

"The ship will arrive in the Lantean system in 2.5 hours." answered Destiny.

"Very well. When we arrive, just establish a stationary orbit over the North pole of Lantea, remain shielded and cloaked and I will give you new orders after I've had a good nights rest and relaxation." ordered Harry.

"Orders acknowledged." answered Destiny.

. . .

The next day... March 7, 1992

Having arrived at Atlantis, Harry immediately restored full power to it with 3 of his 7 spare Potentia; assumed full command placing himself as High Councilor of Atlantis, and ordered the ship to being repairs and maintenance on itself. Sensors detected and therefore he captured the Wraith queen and her Cruiser from the ocean floor, for future study. Then Harry made modifications he invented during his long stasis-sleep in VR to improve the city-ship's Wormhole drive so that it would be reliable for a ship the size of Atlantis. He received an intelligence update from the social research satellite network and learned of the hibernation status of the Wraith, the second birth of the Asurans and their basic status, and learned of the couple of dozen sparsely populated human worlds that are remnant survivors from the Wraith war 10,000 years ago.

Deciding to not bother with the goings on in Pegasus for the time being, leaving it for future endeavors. He might return within 50 years to deal with the Wraith. Until then, his focus is on the Milky Way galaxy. He then docked Destiny and then returned with Atlantis to Earth to begin his new master plan. En route to the Milky Way he ejected the strange sub-space life-form found in containment in the Ascension Research lab into sub-space where it belonged. While en-route to Earth, Atlantis sensors detected a damaged Lantean Aurora class Battleship trying to make its way to Earth at .999 sub-light speed. He figured that they will never get there but, who is he to stop them from trying. And he also figured that the way the 'Others' of their race treated him he owes the Lanteans as much consideration as their Ascended contemporaries gave him, so he decided to just ignore them, after all who is he to 'interfere' with their normal development and progress. Upon arrival at Earth Harry simply decided to leave Atlantis in geosynchronous orbit of Hogwarts at an altitude of 20,000 kilometers, where he still planned to go make friends and recruit from.

Harry commissioned the creation of 150,000 human form replicator's that assumed all of the crew and military positions of Atlantis, it's normal crew complement. This way he wouldn't be alone and would have all the help he should need. These did not possess an independent consciousness but were limited AI's that were slaved to the Atlantis AI and had simulated personalities so they would appear, act, and sound as human as possible, but would always obey and remain loyal to Harry. It would take weeks for this crew to finish being produced by the Atlantis AI while he attended to other things. Other than that the city could support 2,000,000 more human lives but Harry was pretty sure he wouldn't use up all that space in his life time.

The next day... March 8, 1992

Harry visited the old Alteran outpost in Antarctica and restored it's full power with a new Potentia from his spare, leaving him with just three remaining spares now. He then constructed a special gate-room within the outpost and transported the primary Earth gate from the icy cave along with it's DHD, to the outpost. Then he set up a gate-shield that only he has access to and locked out both the gate and the ring platform. He reset the control chair to not merely accept anyone with Alteran genes but to answer to him and him only. This will be his new Earth command post from now on, when he needed one, and he included within it another full copy of the Atlantis computer core and a matter construction device just in case something happened to Destiny and Atlantis and he got stranded on Earth somehow. He would continue to live in the penthouse suite of the command quarters on Atlantis though. He instructed the Atlantis AI to have some of the new HFR engineering crew construct and install a planetary shield generator at the outpost. This step would take weeks to be completed by the Atlantis AI. But once again, he could attend to other matters while this went on.

While he was there Atlantis sensors informed him that there was an Alteran life sign detected frozen in cryogenic stasis not far from the outpost under about 15 meters of ice. Harry had Atlantis beam the person to a containment pod in the medical bay and maintained their cryogenic suspension. He would investigate this person in the future. They've waited 7.5 million years, what's a little longer in the grand scheme of things.

The next day... March 9, 1992

While Atlantis AI was taking care of finishing these projects for him, he decided to take care of a few other loose ends. He returned to Earth, gathered up all of Voldemort's other Horcrux's and destroyed them. Following that he destroyed the remaining soul piece that was contained in stasis in his holding cell-and Voldemort was no more. Following that he decided to obtain whatever resources his family left him if any, and update his wardrobe, entertainment, and related matters.

All of that reminded Harry to transfer his clone in stasis from Destiny to Atlantis, and to make another copy of his consciousness and memories on Atlantis central computer, with the same instructions he previously gave Destiny. Atlantis' chances of long-term survival were that much greater than Destiny's after all.

...

Harry went to Gringotts bank and approached a teller.

"Goblin, I require access to my vault." said Harry.

"I am sure a wizard boy of your age does not have a vault. Run along and play kid." snarled the Goblin.

Harry peered into the Goblin's eyes. "You will arrange for me to meet privately with an account manager immediately."

"Griphook" yelled the teller. "This young wizard needs to see you privately in regards to his account."

"Right this way wizard." said Griphook, an he led Harry to a private room.

"What is your name wizard and do you have your key?" asked Griphook.

"My name is Harry Potter and no I do not have my key. I only recently learned that I was a wizard and that I have a wizard inheritance. I had been kidnapped from the scene of the murder attempt on my person when I was a baby and placed with my muggle relatives without their consent. I can only presume my key is lost or stolen." replied Harry.

"Very well Mr. Potter, use this ritual knife and make a small cut on your thumb and place three drops of your blood on this parchment." said Griphook.

Harry did as instructed and Griphook took the parchment and cast some kind of Goblin magic on it. The parchment began writing. "Identity: Harry James Potter. Son of James Potter and Lily Evans. Sole heir to the Potter trust vault. Contents: Galleons 700,000, Sickles 12,000, Knuts 850,000."

"It looks like all is in order Mr. Potter. I will have a new key made for you. In the meantime, do you need to visit your vault?" said Griphook.

"That will not be necessary. Please just liquidate all of my account except for 50,000 Galleons-into muggle pounds sterling." said Harry.

"Mr. Potter, we cannot accept your authorization to perform that action, we will need written authorization from your guardian." said Griphook.

"I have no guardian. I left the abusive home of my relatives almost two years ago and have no intention of returning there. I will continue to make it on my own from now on, and I have plans. Now, will you do as I asked or not?"

"I will need to summon a bank manager Mr. Potter." replied Griphook.

Harry peered into Griphook's eyes. "You will liquidate my account as I requested immediately."

"Very well Mr. Potter. One moment." replied Griphook, as he left the room to attend to the tasks.

Upon returning Griphook said: "There you go Mr. Potter, I have taken the liberty of opening an account with you at Barclay's with whom we have a relationship and transferred the full sum of your vault in the amount of £3,272,150.10. Here is an ATM/Debit card that will allow you to access your account. I recommend you follow up with them directly as soon as possible to register your new address and to apply for bank drafts, and what have you." concluded Griphook.

"Thank you Griphook, you've been most helpful. Goodbye."

Harry then traveled to the nearest main branch office of Barclay's under a glamour to look like an adult and arranged for a credit card, and took 3,000,000 of his funds and put them into a long term 6 year jumbo certificate of deposit yielding 9%, which will return £270,000 per year or £22,500. This will be what he lives off of, far more than he actually needs; and the remaining £272,150.10 was left into his linked savings account for when he needed 'mad money.' While maintaining the other 50,000 Galleons in Gringotts when he feels like shopping in the wizarding world. So, with his future secure, assuming he decides to spend much time worrying about earthly material concerns to begin with, it's at least taken care of.

Harry then spent the next week spending a chunk of his mad money shopping for a new wardrobe, a new entertainment system, all the latest movies and music, a lot of different types of food and drink to scan into Atlantis and Destiny's food replicator's to make food there more palatable and interesting, and bought a ton of Earth plants, vegetables and fruits to re-stock his hydroponics bays with the best stuff, and some other frivolous things he didn't really need.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Harry Janus Potter

On April 1, 1992, Harry decided to return to Hogwarts to see if there was a way he could attend now that he actually is ready.

This time, going for the more discreet approach hoping to just get right down to business in the most favorable way, Harry maintained sensor scans on the Headmaster's office until the only people that were present were Professor's Dumbledore and McGonagall.

~there was a bright flash of light~ and ~transporter sound~ and Harry appeared in hologram form in the Headmaster's office.

Startled, Professor McGonagall took a couple steps back after stumbling out of her seat, clutching at her heart.

"Oh my lord, I don't think I will ever get used to that." said Professor McGonagall.

"Hello Mr. Potter. Back so soon? I was under the impression you would not be returning until next term at the soonest and after our last conversation was not sure you would return at all, what has changed?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"Sorry, ma'am." said Harry. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just always like to appear somewhere first in hologram form to ensure there is no danger to before I arrive in person..." Harry said with a meaningful glance to Dumbledore.

Ahem. "Yes, about last time Mr. Potter. Professor McGonagall had a long talk with me about how I conducted myself at our first meeting and she was most aggrieved by my heavy handed approach in trying to convince you to stay. I have also had some time to think over what you've said and what I saw you able to do that day. Further, I've had a few discussions with some of the more muggle or technology able people in our Ministry so to speak and I've concluded that the things you say you can do with technology are probably true or at least feasible as I've been told by people who claim to know people who know about such things-if you really do have some kind of space ship." said Professor Dumbledore.

"So... with all that said I would like to apologize and re-assure you that no-one at this school will try to force you to stay or anything. We are of course very curious about your very unique circumstances and while I'd like to know all about it. I am sure you will tell us only what you want us to know all in good time. We would of course be happy for you to attend this school if you still wish to, I can only ask and hope that these strange new technology ways you are involved in now do not bring any danger to the other students at the school." concluded Professor Dumbledore.

"Ah yes, but there is a bit more to the story you see Mr. Potter." began Professor McGonagall, while giving the Headmaster a look the clearly said 'you are forgetting something very important'.

"What the Headmaster did not mention is that a great deal of your adventure during your first visit here has made the press in the Daily Prophet. It turns out that a resident gossip columnist who calls herself a journalist, maintains regular contact with certain elements in our school that seem perfectly willing to sell a story for money. So, needless to say...within days of your visit back in March-word of your arrival, indeed your survival-because you had been thought lost...was printed. Of course so was all of the other flamboyant actions of that day, with pensieve memories of certain students turned into photographs for the paper, and well as you can imagine-you have become rather infamous, well for the second time now, in the wizarding world. Congratulations for that by the way." continued Professor McGonagall, sarcastically.

"Since then there has been a running debate among the population as to whether said journalist has finally gone off the deep end and made the entire thing up to cause great sensation. Or-Other ideas range from thinking you are the neatest and coolest new thing since the invention of the wand, to others who think you are a danger to society with whatever ability you seemed to demonstrate that could render a person's magic useless or unavailable. No one is actually certain what happened there. Then lets not forget the whole debacle with Professor Quirell, You-Know-Who...and the manner in which you discovered and dealt with it all. There are those who wish to think what you've demonstrated isn't some fancy new technology at all, rather some worse new dark magic. The opinions run the board; including you making up most of it just to show off. I daresay the Ministry for Magic would like to question you on a number of things. So, are you sure you really want to bring all of this upon yourself?" concluded Professor McGonagall.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Harry replied.

"I take it that means you aren't too concerned?" pressed McGonagall.

"Well let's put it this way. If anything should happen to me that would either render me unconscious, cause my life signs to fall to a certain unacceptable level, or am restrained in any way such that I cannot communicate with my ship-then, my ship which maintains an un-blockable transporter lock on me at all times, will beam me directly to my ship's medical bay and automatically activate the emergency medical hologram. So, all I will say is if any of that stuff should happen, don't have a seizure if you see me suddenly disappear."

"As for the political side of all that. I will participate in those parts I want to and ignore the parts I don't." said Harry.

"Alright then Harry. Since you are back I assume you want to attend Hogwarts. You implied that you thought you could test out of your first year materials. Just how advanced are you in magic and your education and if I may ask, who taught you?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"I will answer some of your questions if you give me an unbreakable vow of secrecy not to reveal what I tell you in any way unless I give you my permission to do so." replied Harry.

"Is that really necessary Mr. Potter? That is an extreme thing to ask someone to do? You do know how serious that is don't you?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"I do ma'am. I understand that if a person breaks the vow they will die. How about this instead. You can swear me the same secrecy but on your magic instead of your life. Is that more reasonable?" said Harry.

"That is a little better Mr. Potter. I will accept on those terms." said Professor Dumbledore.

"I suppose I will as well then." sighed, Professor McGonagall.

They oaths were given and Harry began.

"First what I want to do is to attend Hogwarts as a student but, only auditing all the classes-not formally required to do all the work or attend all the classes. I will take the exams with my classmates, including OWLS and NEWTS in their time, or I can test out of them early, whichever is most convenient for both parties. I will need to have special dispensation to come and go from Hogwarts as I see fit, as I have other duties to attend to regarding my home and operation in space. And you must waive the in loco parentis thing because, I consider myself fully emancipated in accordance with the laws of my new off-world colony. If you wish to make that official with your government that would be nice, but in this matter it is only what I believe that actually matters-they have no hold on me. I am no one's property and that includes the State." said Harry.

"And the reason I do not need the formal education and could test out of the entire curriculum today if I wanted to is because when I was nine years old I absorbed all the memories, knowledge, and skills of Tom Riddle aka Lord Voldemort. This occurred when I died briefly at the hands of my Uncle Vernon who beat me and then drowned me in the bath tub. Unbeknownst to everyone including myself, apparently my old curse scar from the night he murdered my parents contained a Horcrux or a portion of his soul. One that he didn't intend to make, or rather he did intend to make it but did not intend it to go in me. He expected me to die and he would've put that Horcrux into his snake Nagini. You know what happened instead and so there you have it. Apparently when I died, Riddle's soul passed on instead of me and I was permitted to return to life. When I did so, I acquired all his knowledge. At that point I set myself free from the Dursley's asylum and as you can see have had a number of great adventures, acquired even more knowledge and assets and can take care of myself." concluded Harry.

"I don't even know where to begin with your requests or that story Mr. Potter." said Professor Dumbledore.

Professor McGonagall was giving murderous looks to Dumbledore and shaking his finger at him. Silently reminding him that she told him the Dursley's were no damned good.

"If what you say happened then it is theoretically possible this memory transference could have happened the way you said it did. But, there have been no other recorded cases of this so we just don't know. I would be, 'must say that I am, concerned whether or not during this process if Tom Riddle's darkness and predilection for evil has also been transferred to you or tainted you in some other way?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"No, I don't believe it has Professor. Besides the idea that it could have even done so is in itself merely an assumption, a guess. I know of no way to prove it either way, do you?" replied Harry.

"The only thing I could think of would be Legilimency, but that wouldn't actually be proof because a sufficiently skilled Occlumens can make even the most skilled Legilimens see what they want them to see. So, the only practical thing I can think of is to accept your request to attend Hogwarts and keep a close eye on you as you grow up. Will that abide with you? We can check up on you from time to time to satisfy ourselves that Riddle hasn't tainted you toward the darkness?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"That would be fine so long as you understand that I will probably always keep certain things secret. My work in space and my personal life in general is an entirely different matter and my own business unless or until I invite others to become involved. I take it you will agree to all the conditions I laid out then?" asked Harry.

Sigh, exclaimed Dumbledore. "Initially I was thinking of pressing you back on certain things because what you ask is rather unorthodox. But, it might all be for the best if you are as trained as you say. This way if there is a problem you do not need to be in any given class at any given time and it won't raise as many questions if you need to leave on account of it." replied Professor Dumbledore.

"First though, I would like you to allow myself and Professor McGonagall to give you a quick quiz of certain knowledge and certain practical demonstrations of magic at the 7th year level to prove to us you can do as you say." concluded Professor Dumbledore.

"That seems fair to me sir." replied Harry. Then the Professors spent the next hour quizzing him on knowledge across the range of primary subjects and had him demonstrate spell work to show he could do it. All of this was successful. He surpassed their expectations, even with accepting he was telling the truth. Just one thing really stuck out though.

"Well Mr. Potter you do seem to have the abilities you said you do. One question remains. Where is your wand?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"Oh, I do not need a wand Professor." replied Harry.

"...don't need...well, I...Albus?" stuttered Professor McGonagall.

"Tom was proficient in wandless magic as well Minerva, perhaps this is just another consequence of the circumstances. Harry would you care to elaborate?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"Let's go with your answer sir. I think it fits quite nicely." answered Harry.

"There's more to it though, isn't there?" continued Professor Dumbledore.

"A bit. Basically, and this is covered by your vow of secrecy as well. When all this happened when I was nine I sort of merged with my magical core and released pure unfettered access to my magic. I can probably perform feats of magic that none of you have even imagined. I don't know if you want to call it an accident or quirk of fate. But, besides the whole Riddle thing, I have become extremely powerful and extremely attuned to my magic, or perhaps better to say magic in general." answered Harry.

"I see." replied Professor Dumbledore.

"The power he knows not..." Dumbledore mumbled.

"What was that sir?" asked Harry.

"Oh, I was referring to a line in a prophecy that was made about you before you were born. It goes like this..." and Dumbledore recited the prophecy to Harry.

"Oh, right. Riddle knew the first part of it. Well, there is nothing to worry about anymore. I have already rounded up all of his Horcrux's destroyed them, then destroyed his spirit that I had captured on my ship. He is gone for good. So, I guess you can say the power he knows not and I have done our job, fulfilled our destiny as it were." replied Harry.

"Indeed? That is astounding news. I had thought to work with you sometime in the future after you had grown some to work on putting an end to him. I guess you really are that advanced. Amazing. Well, with that bit of news. I say, welcome to Hogwarts Harry. Why don't we sort you into a House at the evening meal tonight and you can begin to attend right away? You can come visit me some time after you settle in and tell me the tale of his Horcrux's, I would be curious to know what they were and how you destroyed them." gushed Professor Dumbledore.

"Sure. That will be fine. I will go gather a few things I will need and return this evening for the meal." said Harry.

"Oh... Before I go there is one more thing I need to tell you so that you can hopefully correct a miscarriage of justice. My godfather Sirius Black is innocent of the crimes you put him into Azkaban for, well...at least the secret keeper part. Voldemort didn't have memories of what happened after obviously. But, Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater spy working within your Order of the Phoenix and he was in fact the secret keeper for my parents. Given that, I doubt the veracity of the rest of the claims against Sirius in regard to his confrontation with Pettigrew. If anything, it would have gone the other way around. Pettigrew is after all a rat animagus and could have easily escaped the scene unnoticed." said Harry.

"Oh my goodness. Are you sure?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"Yes, this was knowledge Riddle himself knew, thanks directly to Pettigrew. Obviously I can't testify to his memories. But, I have it on good authority that he was sent to Azkaban without ever having a trial. Perhaps you could use your power as the Chief Warlock to order a trial to be held. It is after all about a decade overdue. Then you can question him under Veritaserum in open court and have all the proof you need."

"I will make the appropriate inquiries and look into this matter immediately." promised Professor Dumbledore.

"Thank you." said Harry, as he disappeared in a ~bright flash of light~.

...

That evening at Hogwarts before the start of the evening meal.

Dumbledore stood up before dinner to make an announcement.

"Before we begin our evening meal I have a special announcement to make." began Dumbledore.

"You will all of course remember the spectacular entrance Harry Potter made on his return to the wizarding world here in this very hall in early March. It is my pleasure to announce that young Mr. Potter has returned from his other business and will now be taking up a position as a student of Hogwarts." continued Dumbledore.

The room broke out in a buzz of whispers and side-bar conversations.

"Alright now, settle down. Let me get this information out so that you can begin your meal." continued Dumbledore.

"Harry has been home-schooled in magic from an earlier age and hence will attend Hogwarts not as an ordinary student but will only audit all of the classes. As such he is not formally required to do all the work or attend all the classes. He is attending at his pleasure in order to advance any areas he wishes to experience in a class-room setting. Furthermore, due to Mr. Potter's rather unique... uhm,... home circumstances. Ahem... He will have dispensation to come and go from Hogwarts as he sees fit so that he may attend to other duties he has outside of the school. Furthermore, if it hasn't been made obvious yet, while Mr. Potter is still young, just going on 12 years old-he is now a fully emancipated minor." continued Dumbledore.

The noise level in the room spiked again, louder than before with a number of incredulous guffaws at that last bit of news.

"Quiet!" said Dumbledore.

"Finally, please understand that normally I would not stand here and give out so much personal information about any one student but as Mr. Potter's circumstances and the conditions under which he will be attending Hogwarts are so different than the rest of you I felt it pertinent that you understand. Please do not pester Harry with question after question about his life. If he wants to discuss any of that with you he will. Thank you. Now Professor McGonagall if you would please do the honors and sort Mr. Potter into a house." concluded Dumbledore.

Harry made his way to the center of the Great Hall where Professor McGonagall waited near a stool with the sorting hat.

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited. [SS7]

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Interesting. Very interesting."

"What is interesting?" Harry replied in his thoughts.

"Well Mr. Potter, if that is who you are. You see, I cannot see into your mind at all. It is as if you are not there or rather that there is no one there at all. How can I sort you into a house if I cannot see into your mind?" said the Hat.

"Well Mr. Hat, I will not let anyone see into my mind. It is after all, my mind you see. Private and all that." replied Harry in his thoughts.

"Then how will I sort you?" replied the Hat.

"I don't care, sort me into whatever house you want." answered Harry in his thoughts.

"Well, I know that the old man would like you to end up in Gryffindor house." replied the Hat.

"Splendid, put me in Gryffindor house then, by all means let's make the old man happy, I assume you refer to Professor Dumbledore?" replied Harry in his thoughts.

"Okay, I can't wait to get this over with...GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted to the hall.

...

With only two months remaining until the end of term, Harry barely had a chance to get to know very many people. However, he made a point to meet and get to know all the muggle-born or even half-blood in his age-group who had half a mind what technology was-in order to befriend them and make his own clique.

The Slytherin's gave Harry a wide berth after the display he put on the first time he came to Hogwarts. Him having actually exposed and captured the spirit of Lord Voldemort no less. They didn't know what to think except that they were staying out of this kids way. There was one incident with the blonde ponce Draco Malfoy and his goon squad but, all that resulted in was the boy wetting his pants again and crying 'wait until my father here's about this' 'blah blah blah' as he normally does. It became easy enough for Harry to tune him out.

Harry's encounters with Snape were rather muted since the first day when Harry was able to answer all his questions and did not respond to being goaded or baited. Harry for his part rebuffed Snapes' attempt at Legilimency with Snape not even able to find an edge to the boy's mind much less a door. Harry returned the favor, effortlessly slipping through his defenses and telepathically warning him not to try to attack his mind again or he would leave him in a coma for the insult. After that Snape never even addressed him again unless Harry started the conversation. This was not the spawn of Potter that he was expecting.

The only two groups he made friends with was a study group that his house-mate Hermione Granger invited him to join, which beside the two of them included a group of Ravenclaw's in their year such as Terry Boot, Sue Li, Lisa Turpin, Padma Patil, and through her Parvati since she was Padma's twin and one of Hermione's dorm mates. Hermione told Harry that she acclimated more to these other kids from Ravenclaw over the year because they were most interested in studying and gaining knowledge the same as she is; as opposed to most of Gryffindor which didn't seem to care at all about school work and teased her about her work ethic endlessly. She also mentioned that she was somewhat friends with Neville Longbottom because both he and she get bullied sometimes by other Gryffindor's or some of the stuck-up purebloods in the school like Malfoy. So they sometimes need to stick up for each other. Harry told her that he doesn't like bullies and that she could always come to him if anyone is giving her that kind of trouble and that he would keep a look out to watch her back when he could.

Harry shared with Hermione his personal quest to befriend as many muggle-born and half-blood students who were at least somewhat attuned to their muggle-side, as possible. Therefore, she introduced him to several people like that which she knew in their year, a few of which she knew shared her love of muggle sci-fi. So, Harry began to form another clique of his own that included Hermione again, as well as Justin Finch-Fletchley and Kevin Entwhistle, both muggle-borns; and Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Hannah Abbot, all half-bloods. His connection to the muggle-borns and half-bloods was his willingness to somewhat openly discuss a portion of his technology and his life in space with them-and for their part their sincere interest in it. Although he did not share any big strategic secrets with them yet, like the fact that he is in possession of the lost city of Atlantis or any of that. He's kept it somewhat mysterious to this point. But for what it was worth, they could relate to him and he to them in regard for the role of technology in ones life and the interesting things you could do with it.

Predictably, once Harry's return and enrollment in Hogwarts was announced and Professor Dumbledore having been Harry's magical guardian filed the correct paperwork to emancipate him-the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge made a show of coming to Hogwarts to visit Harry and ask him some questions before putting his stamp of approval on said documents. A cunning politician knows when a discretionary favor is being asked of him of course, and when to leverage it.

...

So, one evening after dinner, the Headmaster summoned Harry to his office.

"You asked for me sir?" said Harry, as he arrived at the office.

"Yes. Mr. Potter, I am sorry to say that our esteemed Minister for Magic has decided that he must come here and speak to you himself before he will sign off on the emancipation papers that I submitted." said Professor Dumbledore.

"Oh. Okay. When is that going to happen?" asked Harry.

"He will be here in about 10 minutes." answered Dumbledore.

"Ah. Well, what can you tell me about him before he gets here? Am I going to have to start packing my bags or is this guy going to be reasonable?" asked Harry.

Professor Dumbledore grimaced and gave Harry a crash course on the personality and quirks of one Cornelius Fudge.

Professor McGonagall arrived announcing the arrival of the Minister for Magic and his retinue which consisted of two Aurors for his personal security, John Dawlish and Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Hello Minister. I take it you had a comfortable journey from your office?" greeted Dumbledore, trying to sound like he gave a single damn about the Minister's personal comfort.

"Yes, yes. All is well Dumbledore. Ah, there he is. Young Mr. Potter. Hello dear boy, I am Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic. You gave us all quite a turn disappearing like that." began Fudge.

Dumbledore waved his wand and conjured some comfortable chairs. "Why don't we all sit down and get comfortable for this discussion. Minerva, care to join us?" asked Dumbledore.

"Don't mind if I do Albus." replied Minerva, privately thinking that this ought to be interesting.

Before Fudge sat down, Harry introduced himself and shook the Minister's hand as well as his two Aurors accompanying him.

"Hello Minister Fudge, it is nice to meet you. You too Mr. Dawlish and Mr. Shacklebolt." began Harry.

As Harry sat down he continued, "Professor Dumbledore tells me that you have some questions for me before you will sign off on my emancipation papers?"

"Yes, well. Straight to the heart of the matter then. Certainly. You must understand how unusual all of this is. We of course followed your news since your first arrival and the shall we say unusual displays of magic and what you claimed is technology. Your discovery and dealing with the spirit of You-Know-Who trying to come back was extraordinary and we thank you for that naturally. That whole thing shocked all of us. We'd thought he was long ago dead for sure. But, there are so many questions. From where have you been since you were nine? Who has been taking care of you? What have you been doing? How have you come into all of this unusual magical knowledge and if it is to be believed, technology and space ships? The latter we wholeheartedly do not believe. You must understand how incredulous this sounds to everyone?-and finally how does all of this add up to your belief that you should be emancipated at your age?" said Fudge.

"Hmm. Where to start?" began Harry.

"Well, I explained much of this to Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall already under a magical vow of secrecy. But I assume that a man in your position would never concede to such a thing. Unless I'm wrong about that I will not be able to answer most of your questions. Where I've gone, what I have been doing, what I plan to do with my future-are all secrets of my own. My own personal business. But before I go on, what is your answer about a magical vow of secrecy?" continued Harry.

"That is absurd Mr. Potter. Of course I will give no such vow. You must answer my questions. I am the Minister for Magic. I can have you brought in for official questioning you know? Just for the unusual and some allege dark uses of magic that you've already displayed." answered Fudge.

"I see." said Harry as he leaned forward to look into Fudge's eyes. "Did you bring the emancipation paperwork with you?" asked Harry.

"I did." Fudge answered, as he instinctively reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved said papers.

Then Harry, pouring some of his ascended power into his telepathy... looked deep into Fudge's eyes and said "Minister, I thank you for your concern for my well being. But I assure you that I am fine and well taken care of. Everything will be fine. Please just sign the papers." said Harry.

Then Minister Fudge signed the papers approving Harry's emancipation, made to get up and said "Well then, that is that. If that is all? I have a busy day tomorrow, I should be going."

Standing up, he concluded: "Thank you for meeting with me Mr. Potter, it was nice to meet you and welcome back to the wizarding world. Come Dawlish, Shacklebolt. Dumbledore, Minerva... a pleasure as always." as he left the office, with his Aurors following him.

After the group left the office, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall regained their wits and Dumbledore said, "Mr. Potter-what was that? I thought he was on the verge of arresting you and he suddenly changed heart and happily signed your papers and left on your merry way. Did you use some kind of Imperious curse on him?" asked Dumbledore sounding more incredulous with every word.

"Not at all. I simply answered his questions truthfully and asked him nicely. Some say that I have a powerful personality though. So maybe that is what swayed him." answered Harry.

"I'm not going to regret having you attend school here am I Mr. Potter?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"I shouldn't see why. If you doubt me, you should go check him for spells or other magic. I assure you, I used no magic on him." said Harry.

"Hmm. I can't say that I get it at all. But frankly if getting Fudge to do what he ought to have done in the first place is the worst you ever do, I don't have a problem with it. But I will be keeping a sharper eye on you." replied Dumbledore.

Sigh, exhaled Harry. "Okay, whatever makes you happy."

"You are dismissed Harry." concluded Dumbledore.

"Thank you. Good night professors." said Harry, as he left the office.

...

"What was that Albus?" asked McGonagall.

"I don't know Minerva, I don't know. There is something very strange about that boy in addition to what he told us. I have little doubt that he was truthful about his use of magic. I don't think he would've bluffed that knowing how easily I could have checked. There is something else. We need to keep a sharp eye and ear out for what he's doing in the school." replied Dumbledore.

"Very well. I agree." answered McGonagall.

"I'm just glad it didn't come out in the conversation that I am, or was, his magical guardian. I was sure we would get to that at some point since only a guardian can sign and submit those papers for approval. But, we skipped right passed any detailed discussion of the request itself. I am sure that someday Harry is going to learn of my responsibility of placing him with the Dursley's and I don't look forward to that confrontation." continued Dumbledore.

"Well, I told you not to trust them Albus. I am partially to blame myself for allowing you to do it. I am with you on hoping he never bothers to inquire about that. Or perhaps somehow he already knows and moved on passed that a long time ago?" replied McGonagall.

"Well, who knows. Let's hope we don't ever have to find out." concluded Dumbledore.

...

Prior to everyone going home for the year, Hermione asked Harry:

"Where do you go home to now that you don't need to go to your relatives anymore?" asked Hermione.

"Oh, I live in a special space station for lack of a better word that I keep cloaked and in very high orbit of Earth." answered Harry.

"Really? I thought you just had your space ship, the Battleship Destiny?" continued Hermione.

"Oh, and by the way I have been meaning to ask you, why did you name your Battleship 'Destiny' anyway?" continued Hermione.

"Actually I didn't name the ship, but I will save that story for another time perhaps. As for the rest well, there is a lot I haven't wanted to tell anyone yet. I am hoping to develop a certain circle of trusted muggle-connected magical friends that I can begin to share more of this with. But, you know...I'm still just getting to know everyone. Basically I usually keep Destiny docked on the space station unless I need it to go somewhere and I feel like leaving the station behind." replied Harry.

"Oh, it's okay. You've only known me about two months now. It's too bad you didn't start the school year with us, we would probably be best friends by now." replied Hermione.

"Probably. But, really you are my best friend at Hogwarts so far Hermione. I know I haven't been here that long but, if it weren't for you I wouldn't have made half the new friends I have so far." replied Harry.

"Thank you Harry. That's nice of you to say. Why don't you stop by my house some time this summer for a visit? We have a pool and you can come over and we can have a picnic and go swimming or something?" asked Hermione.

"Okay, that sounds like fun. Any particular day this summer you think is good for you? Or just any time?" asked Harry.

"Well, any time except the last week of June through the second week of July. Our family will be on vacation out of the country then. But anytime before then or after then is fine. Here is my address and phone number." said Hermione.

"Thanks. Well turnabout is fair play." replied Harry, and he removed his communicator arm band and gave it to her.

"I don't have a phone as such, but you can call me on this. This is one of my sub-space communicators. You can essentially use it like a phone to call me. Of course this can reach me across the space of several galaxies." Harry said with a grin.

"You'll have to wait until I get back to my space station in a little while to get another one and link it to this one before you can use it. But, here... let me show you how to work it. You can talk to it verbally like this, kind of like a muggle walkie-talkie. Or, believe it or not if you wear it on your arm the way you saw me doing, it will form a neural link with your mind and you can effectively mentally command the communicator and speak telepathically through it to me." continued Harry.

"Oh my. You are giving me one of your gadgets?" asked Hermione.

"Are you sure? I don't want to break it." continued Hermione.

"Don't worry about it. I have thousands of these available to me and I can easily make many thousands more. Plus they are much more difficult to break than you might think." replied Harry.

"Here, let me see it a second. I will set it up for you so that it recognizes who you are when you're wearing it and then it will be addressable for you personally..." continued Harry.

"There you go." concluded Harry.

"Thank you Harry. Well I'd better get finished packing. I will see you tomorrow for the train ride back to Kings Cross. You are going to take the train aren't you?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, I am. I want to do it just for fun you know? Like I said I am here mostly for the experience and a chance to grow up and get to know other kids my age. If I don't do things like this even though I really don't need to, I will miss out, you know?" said Harry.

"I know what you mean. I think it's great. Well Goodnight." said Hermione.

"G'night." answered Harry.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

June 15, 1992

The next morning after breakfast as the student body made ready to head to the train station, Professor Dumbledore caught up to Harry on his way out.

"Mr. Potter, can I have a word?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"Yes, sir." replied Harry.

"I just wanted to let you know that I have made the necessary inquiries at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (DMLE) and you were correct. Sirius Black was incarcerated without a trial. So, with that fact it was within my authority to order a trial for him." said Professor Dumbledore.

"That's great. Do you know when it will be?" asked Harry.

"Yes. He is being moved to a low security cell, one that is not patrolled by Dementors, so that he can regain his faculties and his strength. He will receive better meals and health checks as well. He will be ready to stand trial August 15th." replied Professor Dumbledore.

"Would it be possible for me to attend the trial and would it be possible for me to visit him before hand to see how he is doing and to let him know I am alright?" asked Harry.

"Yes. You can attend the trial and I can arrange to have you visit him. I don't suppose an owl would reach you. How should I get in touch with you?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"You can send an owl to Hermione Granger. I've given her a means to communicate with me. I will let her know you might send something to her for me." replied Harry.

"Very well. That will do. Now, for the second item." began Professor Dumbledore. He reached into the bag he was carrying and handed Harry a small package.

"You might want to wait until you get home to open that. You might not want everyone in the school to know you have it, they are quite rare." Dumbledore said with a wink.

"That is an invisibility cloak. It rightfully belongs to you. Your father loaned it to me shortly before that night and I've held on to it with the hope of returning it to you. It is a family heirloom as I was told." said Professor Dumbledore.

"Thank you sir. It's nice to have something of my fathers." replied Harry.

"Well then, if there are no questions I think you should be on your way. I wouldn't want you to miss your train ride." concluded Dumbledore.

Harry met up with Hermione for the walk to the train and told her about his conversation with Dumbledore and that he told him to write to her to get in contact with him. He apologized for not asking first but there wasn't time. She was not bothered by it and told him it is fine.

...

The train ride was uneventful except that Harry and Hermione shared a compartment with Neville, Parvati, and Padma-and they just played games like exploding snap, made small talk, and ate copious amounts of candy off the trolley-regular kids stuff. For once Harry felt like he was just hanging out with kids his own age doing nothing more than what kids his age do. Since no one else brought up his adventures in space or anything related, he didn't either. This is part of what he had been looking for.

...

After saying goodbye to his friends at the train station, he returned to the train so that no one would see-and then he transported back to Atlantis.

By this time Atlantis had finished all the small projects he assigned when he arrived in orbit of Earth. All 150,000 HFR's were finished and already set upon their assigned duties and the Outpost upgrades including its new shields were finished.

Harry got himself a new sub-space communicator armband out of storage and set about adding the HFR population to his neural link, in addition to Atlantis herself and Destiny.

Harry initiated a long-range sensor sweep from Atlantis and discovered an uninhabitable planet in a nearby star system, Alpha Centauri Bb, that happened to be very rich in all the minerals he needed to refill all of Atlantis supplies and to build a construction campaign when he was ready to.

Harry left Destiny in geosynchronous orbit of Earth and flew Atlantis to orbit AC-Bb.

"Atlantis, redesignate planet Alpha Centauri Bb as 'Bastion'." ordered Harry.

"Order acknowledged." replied Atlantis.

Harry then instructed Atlantis to begin a mining and refining operation on Bastion, continuously stockpiling refined materials and raw neutronium ore. Lantean nanites could replicate directly by 'feeding' on raw neutronium ore, they did not need refined ore for that purpose. He dedicated one of Atlantis six piers to this function.

Harry separately ordered the launch of a new Potentia creation complex that would remain permanently in the photosphere of the Bastion Star (Alpha Centauri B). This would produce 10 new Potentia per month and automatically transport them back to Atlantis for storage, and repeat continuously.

Looking over his HFR's Harry realized he had a small problem. One, he wasn't very creative when he gave Atlantis orders to create them, so they all looked like an adult version of himself, or rather they were quite the spitting image of his father except with his emerald green eyes. The other problem was naming them. They all looked the same and effectively were controlled under one collective neural net anyway. But to address them individually whenever he wanted to, what should he do? In the end he decided to just keep it simple for now. He had all of their uniforms modified to add a name tag that said 'HFR Mk1 James 000001 through 150000.' So, in practice if he was to call upon one of them he would just call them 'James 123456' or the like. At least he could re-use his original middle name and his Dad's name to some effect. Atlantis already had groups of them divided up into various crew and military functions, so they each had insignia designating their function and their position as well. But, Harry left those alone. Those were fine as they were.

The next day Harry worked in his lab putting the finishing touches on his new stealth intelligence satellite probe. This will have all the capabilities of the Lantean design, but designed to more easily launch, retrieve, and operate centrally without any need for a ships logistical support. Therefore they were quite a bit larger, each having their own hyper-space engine, naquadah generator, shields, and a point defense plasma beam added to it's original sensors, computer, and communication package, and still had it's cloak. Each one of these satellites were now about half the size of a Goa'uld Al'kesh. He did most of the work while in VR during his transit back to the MW galaxy on Destiny, so this didn't take long. By the end of the day he had instructed Atlantis to mass produce 500 of these. When ready he would link them to the social research lab and launch 396 of them, one to each of the known active stargate planets in the MW galaxy. There were thousands more stargates in the galaxy but they were either not on planets (such as ships) or had not been accessed in over 10,000 years so he didn't much care about those right now. This effort is currently to build his intelligence network of planets active in the stargate network. With 4 of his remaining 5 idle piers dedicated to this construction task he would have all 500 done in 2 days. Meanwhile he typically kept the 1 remaining pier for the command quarters where he lived un-allocated so he always had a place to dock Destiny.

The next day with those deep-space preparations underway, Harry turned his attention back to Earth for a bit. He returned to Destiny and had it scan for all naquadah, trinium and neutronium signatures on the planet. His plan is to find and re-appropriate anything with one of these signatures since he knew none of them were native to Earth. He also knew from Janus' memories that there were going to be several interesting hits for technology as well as living Goa'uld on the planet.

With that accomplished Harry was very interested in the results. He had Destiny beam everything found into appropriately sized individual containment holding cells so that he could examine them personally and decide what to do with them. For the living beings so discovered he had them immediately placed into stasis-sleep.

It took him several days just to look over everything carefully one time. His catch included:

-The Lantean technology hidden under Glastonbury Tor, including Merlin's hard-light hologram projector, a Computer, and a Long-Range Communication device with stones.

-The other stargate that was in storage under a tarp in a US Air Force base and it's DHD which was in storage under a tarp in a Russian Air Force base.

-The Goa'uld Seth/Setesh placed in stasis, and all of his technology.

-The Goa'uld Hathor, still in her sarcophagus.

-The Goa'uld Osiris, still in his canopic jar.

-The Goa'uld Isis, still in her canopic jar (dead, but still preserved).

-The ancient Tel'tak that belonged to Osiris.

Meanwhile, back on Earth. Unbeknown to Harry, dozens of Nish'ta enthralled cultists from Seth/Setesh's compound began to come out of it, wondering what in heaven's name happened to their leader Seth. He was there one minute and gone the next. Eventually a police investigation into the missing cult leader would ensue. Nothing of his illicit items would ever be found, the cultists would be de-programmed and returned to their families, and most eventually resumed a normal life. The case of the missing cult leader Seth would never be resolved.

June 22, 1992... a week since Harry returned to Atlantis and had all of his findings transferred from Destiny, he launched all 396 of his new long range probes, within a day he would have first full reports coming in from around the galaxy. He created a special Intelligence Officer AI to maintain continuous contact with the probes, to perform constant analysis and to be ready to give him up to date summary and detailed reports whenever he asks for them.

Harry also instructed Atlantis to wake each living Goa'uld long enough to copy all of it's memories and store them in a separate Goa'uld knowledge repository he is building. The AI would then perform discrete analysis, comparative analysis, and construct an indexed database for Harry to search through and use at his leisure.

After this first week Harry began to think about how much he is able to accomplish by himself with just the immense capabilities and scale of Atlantis and it's AI and nanite technology and his own unique advanced physiology. Would he really even need any human help at all to accomplish his goals? But, he realized that line of thinking while probably strategically successful would leave him very, very lonely for the rest of his life-and he doesn't want that. So, what he really needs is human companions, not their 'help' per se. His concern remains how to make sure he only lets people in on this who would remain loyal to him, not argue with him over his decisions, and not betray him or his secrets. He doesn't want to control anybody, even though he could. He wants 'real' human interaction, not 'real up to a point.' This would take a lot of thought.

Suddenly with this line of thought he realized he missed seeing Hermione every day and would like to go visit. But, now she is on that vacation she mentioned so he will need to wait until she gets back in about three weeks.

Two days later, the Intelligence AI alerted Harry to the fact that Earths satellite reported heightened military chatter centered around the US base he took the stargate from and conversely have not heard anything yet from the Russian base where they took the DHD from, the interim conclusion is that the Russians didn't even know what it was.

Harry made himself appear like a 60 year old Lantean official, or more specifically he took on the appearance of Janus, and hologrammed into the room the stargate had been stored in.

Four Air Force airmen began threatening him and set off an intruder alert, which brought another squad of commandos into the room and an old bald General.

"Ah, General. just the man I am looking for, I think." said Harry.

"Who are you sir and how did you get into this base?" asked General Hammond.

"I am Supreme Commander Enki of Avalon and I'm technically not actually on your base per se, I am just transmitting to you as a hologram, see?" said Harry. As he walked through the airman posturing menacingly closest to him.

"And who might you be?" Harry asked.

"I am General Hammond. Commanding Officer of this facility." answered General Hammond.

"It is nice to meet you General Hammond. I came because we detected some nervous chatter from your military base over the disappearance of your 'heavens door' device, and in particular your concern over how without it you might never be able to resume your search for your missing scientist, a Dr. Ernest Littlefield I believe." said Harry.

"I am sorry to say that it was we who took the device, which by the way is more properly translated in your language as a 'stargate.'" said Harry.

"Why did you take it? How did you take it? What gives you the right? Are you an alien? Are you spying on us?" asked General Hammond.

"In order then: Because it is ours; we beamed it directly from here to storage on our ship; refer to the first answer; it depends on your definition but let's say yes for now to keep it simple; and yes, of course." answered Harry.

"I see. Well, it was found by archeologists buried in the sands of Giza apparently abandoned millennia ago. We've simply taken it as an ancient artifact that we've been studying and experimenting with." said General Hammond.

"Yes, well to that end, I understand you have a stranded explorer who might still be alive out there but since 1945 to 1992? Why haven't you tried again in so long?" asked Harry.

"We unfortunately never fully understood it apparently. I wasn't involved back then either so I really couldn't say." replied General Hammond.

"Alright, well why don't you give me the stargate address you sent him to and I will send a ship to that location to see if he survived or determine his fate for you. It is the least we can do for leaving this dangerous technology laying around in the first place." said Harry.

"Uh, okay. I will have to ask my superiors if that is alright first." replied General Hammond.

"Very well go ahead. I can wait a little while." replied Harry.

... an hour later

"That took a bit longer than I anticipated." said Harry.

"Well, it took a number of different phone calls and one all the way to the President. We don't get visited by aliens all that much. As a matter of fact I think this is the first. I'm still not sure they believed me. Hell, I'm still not sure I believe you. But if you can determine the date of Dr. Littlefield or rescue him for us if he is still alive, we would be grateful." said General Hammond.

"Here is the information you asked for." said General Hammond, handing out a piece of paper.

Harry looked at it and said, "yes this will do." and beamed it up to himself.

"I will take my leave now and see what I can make of this. Then I will return here to resume contact with you." said Harry.

"How long do you think until you will know?" asked General Hammond.

"About a day or so. I should be able to return here tomorrow around this time with an answer one way or another." answered Harry.

...

The following day Harry returned to the stargate facility on Earth with an emaciated but otherwise alive and sort of healthy, if not somewhat loopy, Dr. Ernest Littlefield. They both appeared in hologram form to make sure the anxious US Air Force weren't going to try to capture Harry or something. He'd hate to have to hurt them.

"General, I see that there are a lot more people to join the party today. As you can see I have located and rescued your Dr. Littlefield. Please standby and I will beam him physically into your facility." said Harry.

Littlefield could be seen reaching off to the side to pick up some things, followed by him beaming down into the facility in the flesh, wearing a loose fitting but standard issue ordinary Lantean medical orderly's uniform. He had to give the naked man something to wear after all. Besides, he got to meet a 'real alien', Harry had to let him keep a souvenir.

With Dr. Littlefield now properly back in the stargate facility and standing next to Harry who was still present only as a hologram. Dr. Littlefield said: "Thank you again Commander Enki. Both for rescuing me and for helping me properly transcribe and keep all my research notes."

"You're very welcome Dr. Littlefield. It was my pleasure to rescue you. And as for the notes-You deserve to take home something of value from the long ordeal you suffered cut off from all human contact for 47 years." replied Harry.

"General. I assume all of these other official looking people you've brought wanted to meet me today since they knew I would be coming?" asked Harry.

"Yes Commander, that is correct." answered General Hammond.

"Okay, I will stay a short while and maybe answer some questions, if they are the right questions, and you all are polite." said Harry.

"Wonderful. Sir, I am General Vidrine from the Pentagon's Advanced Technology Program. General Hammond reported that you said you are an alien, and from a place called Avalon? We are wondering if you could elaborate on that?" asked General Vidrine.

"Hmm. Okay, a little bit I suppose. Avalon is my race's name for this galaxy. So when I referred to that I meant simply that I am Supreme Commander of our Fleet in this galaxy." answered Harry.

"So, you have fleets in multiple galaxies?" asked General Vidrine.

"Sometimes." Harry answered.

"Well, as you can imagine we are all rather astounded to have a visitor from space just drop in on us, not to mention the matter of beaming away the stargate. But, you appear for all other purposes to be as human as we are. You speak English with an English accent. I suppose most of us always anticipated if we ever met an alien that you'd be more, I don't know-alien. And you seem friendly, so thank you for that." said General Vidrine.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha." Harry laughed out loud.

"Oh boy, I needed that." Harry said.

"Yes, so. First yes my race is also human but not precisely like you are. We are actually the first evolution of the human species, dating back over 60,000,000 years ago. We have traveled the stars and seeded the origins of all other human life as you know it in many galaxies for over 40,000,000 years, including this one, and yes including Earth. We are similar to you in appearance yes, but our physiology is different and far more advanced in a number of ways." said Harry.

"For example, as for language. My people have a gift for languages. I can learn a language fluently after holding only a brief conversation with someone in their native tongue. In this case however, our cloaked social research satellite which monitors your world has translated all of your planets languages for us. Your dominant language here is English, so we learned to speak English to you. We love your internet by the way, it made getting caught up on Earth history and geo-politics so easy." answered Harry.

"Well, that is enough chit-chat. I am not supposed to interfere with your normal development at all. I just felt bad about taking our stargate back and thereby leaving your explorer permanently stranded. So I stepped in on that." said Harry.

"Farewell everyone." Harry concluded, and fizzled out of existence.

The gathering in the stargate facility stood around mumbling, apparently very disappointed that the visitor didn't stay and allow himself to be interrogated for days on end. However, some realized that they had learned so much more than they ever knew or could confirm previously. They didn't know it yet but much of Dr. Littlefield's research would fill some gaps in their knowledge and expand their understanding of the galaxy even more. There was to be no stargate program on Earth, but a new avenue of research and development would begin.

...

Over the next three weeks Harry went into detailed planning mode, using his daily increasing amount of fresh intelligence on the state of the galaxy and information pulled from his Goa'uld captives.

He began to categorize and prioritize planets of interest. Concluded that the Goa'uld, while powerful in their own right relatively speaking, were even less so because of their feudal system and the way they treated their subjects. If they were really united and treated their subjects fairly instead of as expendable slaves, they might rule the entire galaxy right now.

There were however several interesting human worlds that had their own levels of advanced technology that could rival them, some of them seriously, such as the Tollan and even the Aschen if they weren't severely brain-damaged by all their own bio-weapons they've been cooking. He was aware of the Nox and the Asgard too, even though he didn't expect them to interfere in the galaxy at all. Especially not the Nox. Possibly the Asgard since they are willing to tangle with the Goa'uld, but their reach is limited and they are still very busy slowly losing their war of attrition to the Replicator's. Harry wondered whether he should seek out the Asgard and offer them aid. He knew he had the technology to help them both with their war with the Replicator's and their cloning problems. But, he thought he would wait to see if they interfered in his plans first. To see how they approach any relationship with him themselves, to determine if they are worthy of any generosity on his part. If they will be an enemy, then 'the enemy of my enemy is still just my enemy's enemy' and all that.

As the day that Hermione should be back from vacation drew closer Harry finally decided to personally look more into the devices that were left by Merlin under Glastonbury Tor. It was the only thing left from his findings that still puzzled him. He knew that from Janus' memory that it could be something interesting, although he had to wonder since all Merlin or Moros did in his time was to work to stifle all of Janus' own interesting experiments. In fact he is rather surprised to find anything of Merlin's left behind at all that involved Lantean technology since that also goes against his long defended position of non-interference. Something seemed very fishy about the whole thing.

"Atlantis, deconstruct the hard-light hologram programming and summarize it for me." ordered Harry.

Atlantis gave him a walk-through of the pre-programmed responses for the hologram and the conditioned responses expected or required of the user, and described to him the purpose of the hard-light hologram of the sword in the stone.

"Ah, how useless." said Harry.

"Atlantis, analyze this Computer left by Merlin and tell me what if anything is unusual about it." ordered Harry.

"Scans indicate that this device is constructed incorporating several normally disparate Lantean technologies. It is a highly advanced and high capacity computer that is combined with a phase-shifting device. It appears intended to restrict the user to being out of phase in order to access it. It's power source is almost depleted." answered Atlantis.

"Strange. Now why would he build a computer that would require you to be out of phase to access it. Hmm. He must've been trying to hide something. Hide what he was doing. But who would he need to hide from? he was the High Councilor. The only conclusion I can reach is that he was trying to hide from the Ascended themselves." Harry thought.

"Damn it. I can't believe he would do something like that." exclaimed Harry out loud, slipping into thinking precisely like Janus for a moment.

"Atlantis, replicate a replacement for the power crystal and transport to me one of our phase-shifting arm bands." ordered Harry.

Two transporter beams activated and sitting side by side on the table in his lab was a new power crystal and a phase-shifting arm band.

"Orders acknowledged. A new power crystal and phase-shifting arm band has been delivered." answered Atlantis.

Harry replaced the power crystal on the device and put on the arm band. Then went out of phase to access the computer.

Harry discovered that this computer was built by Merlin to conceal his research into a device he called the Sangraal, which would be a weapon capable of destroying ascended beings.

Harry let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding and also let out a long whistle. "Whoa! Holy crap. No wonder he was hiding this. Shit, I need to keep this hidden and my knowledge of it hidden now too.-And I need to find out where he hid that device and acquire it for myself. The sneaky little bastard." said Harry, still out of phase and hidden from Ascended eyes and ears.

Continuing his work using Merlin's computer which he now knew was called 'Arthur's Mantle', he determined that the device would draw and release energy in a manner very similar to a Potentia, but instead of releasing the energy into real space it is sent into the dimension occupied by Ascended beings. This energy acts as a form of interference, like positive and negative charges canceling each other out, that negates the powers of every ascended being within range, killing them.

"Ouch. That is extreme. That is genocide. Even given what they did to me I wouldn't do this. What was he thinking?" Harry pondered.

He looked into Arthur's Mantle for more information and discovered Merlin's notes on the Ori.

"Of course." Harry thought. "That is what this is all about. Okay, that makes more sense now. Well, I can see he has a contingency plan here to hide one of these somewhere but those details aren't here. So, who knows what happened at this point. However, it's a good thing this computer has a copy of all his plans. I will just upload those plans into my own memory and then I can build this for myself. Thank you Merlin...So, if the Ori become a threat I probably will use this device on them in their home galaxy, that won't harm the Lantean ascended. But, it is still genocide against the Ori. I will need to see if they give me no other choice. At the moment they aren't bothering anyone in this galaxy so, if they leave me alone I will leave them alone. As for this capability though, I can already see a way to make a scaled down version of this modified to work in normal space. So, I will design a personalized weapon that incorporates this technology that will enable me to defend myself against any individual Ascended who happens to manifest themselves in our dimension. That I could use, if needed. This will use the same principles but will only harm the one I target." Harry concluded his thoughts, turned off Arthur's Mantle, and returned to normal space.

"Atlantis, transport this Computer to my special lock-down vault and keep it there for safe-keeping, along with Merlin's hard-light hologram projector, and this archaic Communications terminal while you're at it." ordered Harry.

"Order acknowledged." answered Atlantis, accompanied by a beamout of the said items.

Harry then quietly and secretly in his lab replicated the parts he needed and built two devices, one galactic scale waveform device that he could launch into say the Ori galaxy, and a special experimental hand held device shaped oddly like a flashlight with the handle of a gun that fired a narrow beam instead of a wideband waveform that he could use in personal one on one engagements with any Ascended who steps into normal space and tries to harm him. Harry double-checked that this weapon could not kill him the same way considering he was partially ascended once. Simulations showed that the only way this would hurt him specifically is if someone were to aim this at his head, it would give him a migraine headache. Held for too long it would be like a Cruciatus curse. Held for far too long and it might put him in a coma. Given those results he cheated by etching permanent runes into it with an accompanying ward that would prevent this gun from being fired with the intent to do him personally any harm.

With the need to keep devices that needed to stay out of phase with current space Harry finally broke down and created a special belt pouch for himself charmed with an expansion pocket dimension and stored his new devices in there. This way they are always on his person and undetectable by spying eyes. Since he now had one of these he stocked it with a number of other useful items, a supply of nanites, a matter construction device, and so forth.

The work on these devices took the remainder of his time before Hermione would be home so, he wrapped up his work and began to put all of this out of his mind so that he could go visit her in a couple days without this stuff top of his mind. He took the opportunity to return to Destiny and then to Earth and did a little more shopping for some more personal items he could always keep on his person since he now carried around a bottomless pouch; and also to reset his mind from thinking about the galaxy, strategy and weapons all the time.

...

Finally the day arrived that he figured Hermione would be home, so...

Knock, knock, knock.

"Hello young man, how can I help you?" asked a man who was probably Hermione's father.

"Hello sir. My name is Harry Potter, one of Hermione's friends from school. She asked me if I wanted to stop by sometime this summer for a visit, so here I am." Harry said with a smile.

"Oh, wonderful. Come on in then. She will be happy to see you, she has spoken of you a number of times since returning from school. I'm not sure that I believe half it though. Let me call her down. Oh, where are my manners -" as he offered his hand to Harry, "I am Wendell Granger, Hermione's Dad. I will get her."

"Hermione!" Wendell called up the stairs. "You have a visitor from school..."

Harry heard shuffling of feet and a door closing and running down the stairs.

"Hiya Harry... I was hoping it was you." replied Hermione.

At that point, Hermione's Mum had also entered the room and both Harry, Hermione, and her parents were sitting in their living room. The parents listening with rapt attention trying to figure out how any of what Hermione told them about this boy could be true.

"Well guess what? I told my Mum and Dad all about your arrival at Hogwarts mid-way through the year, how everyone thought you had died or disappeared or something. So, then I had to tell them the whole boy-who-lived story of course; and then I showed them the Daily Prophet article about your return and all of your business with space ships and alien technology and all." said Hermione, breathlessly.

"Okay Hermione." Harry began with a chuckle. "Slow down, you're going to pass out from talking so fast."

"Well, the thing is my Mum and Dad are muggles of course and until I got my letter for Hogwarts last summer none of us even knew that magic existed. Then when I came home with this story about you, with you being probably the most powerful wizard in the whole world and living on a space-ship and traveling around the galaxy visiting alien worlds. They thought I was putting them on over the whole thing." continued Hermione.

At this point Hermione's parents decided to interrupt.

"Uhm, hello Harry, we haven't been introduced. I'm Hermione's mum Monica Granger. We couldn't help being both intrigued and suspicious of everything Mione told us about you. It was enough just to learn that magic actually exists and now this?" said Monica.

"Oh, and on top of that, what little we have seen of the hidden magical world so far is that technology seems to be anathema to them, and shunned. So, how is it that you would be involved in it so much, if the space stuff is even true? Are other wizards and witches involved secretly in space as well?" concluded Monica.

"Well, its not like that. I see what you mean though. I guess for someone even new to magic that would be a fair question." began Harry.

"The fact is that I have several big secrets that I am still keeping about how all this happened and I don't know if I'm quite ready to start sharing all of that openly yet. I can actually prove everything you've seen and heard is true, but I'm not even sure I want to do that yet. Again, to preserve some secrecy." continued Harry.

"I told Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall some of the secrets, not all of it. But they gave me a magical vow of secrecy, sworn on their magic to keep my secrets. So, I felt safe in doing so. But, I can't keep going around asking everyone I want to tell about my life to give a such vows and for non-magical people like yourself, it's not an option anyway." said Harry.

"The answer to the question about others though is no. I am the only person, magical or otherwise involved in this right now. I can tell you that it is very unique and the most unusual of circumstances that got me into this. I don't feel like sharing all those secrets just yet, it's very personal you know? Plus if the government ever found out the full story, both magical and non-magical they would be fighting each other over which one gets to try to dissect me. I won't allow that to happen. Both the trying and the fighting over me for the privilege to try. They don't know it yet but a lot of people would get hurt if they did, and it wouldn't be me. I don't want people like that to find out the hard way and get other innocent people hurt in the bargain" said Harry.

"That sounds very ominous Harry." began Wendell. "It also sounds very hostile. Not much what I would expect from an almost 12 year old boy. You actually look smaller like a 10 year old boy, but you sound like a retired General in his 60's. Can you explain that?" asked Wendell.

"I could but I won't right now. I'm sorry. But, I've just met you and no offense Hermione, but I've only known you two months. I believe that in time I will loosen up some or open up some and let some people in. But, I'm just not ready yet and I am very worried about the big secrets getting out there. If the world turned hostile toward me I would just have to leave. I don't want to leave. I've been alone for a long time and out there it's just me. I returned to Earth because it's my home world and I want to make friends and find some companionship. My space station has 150,000 human form robots that look like a grown up version of me. But they aren't the same thing you know?" answered Harry.

"Alright. I don't know what you can tell us or what you can't but, after telling us about your robots and your space station...you have to at least show us something to prove some of this, can't you?" asked Monica.

"Actually, I don't mind showing you some of it. It's explaining the details of what happened to me, and the how and why behind all this is happening that I don't feel like sharing yet." began Harry.

"I'm not trying to keep what I'm doing 'in general' a secret. I let it get out easily enough about the fact I live in space and I've demonstrated my use of the technology and so forth. I just don't want to explain how and why just yet. The personal stuff. I'm different. I'm changed, I'm not the same person I was before I changed. I'm not sure I can face everyone knowing about all that yet." continued Harry.

"Hermione, you think I'm the most powerful wizard in the world. And you are probably right. But only because of some of the changes I've gone through. I know most people think that because I did the impossible and survived the killing curse when I was a baby that I am all powerful or something. Fact is no one knows how I survived that curse, it could've been a fluke. The evil wizard was fooling around with other dark magic at the time that he shouldn't have been, and my Mum probably cast some kind of magic trying to protect me and she died trying. Some say it was some mystical reason owed to her sacrifice or something." continued Harry.

"The thing is though that I think I was fairly normal as wizards go except for all that, until something else happened. I've alluded to it already, so I guess I can tell you this much-when I was nine I was essentially kidnapped from Earth by a group of extremely powerful beings and sent to a galaxy far away, it took me until I showed up that first day at Hogwarts to get back. These beings said they would not interfere with me ever again. I got the sense the whole thing was some kind of test or something. And the reason I look smaller or younger is that I spent 1.6 years in stasis during the trip back, or suspended animation I guess you would call it." continued Harry.

"You asked me why my ship is named Destiny. It was their ship named Destiny. The ship is about 50,000,000 years old and they sent me to it knowing that it was in poor condition for wear over the years and no crew, no help, and life support was failing. I had to repair everything and learn how to get it in shape to sustain my life and get me back home. It is why and how they did that, and how I have the knowledge and ability to fix their space ship and everything else I've done since then and everything I'm planning to do now-that I don't want to share just yet. I'm different now. I don't think it's a bad thing anymore. But, I don't know how everyone else is going to feel and I want to make real honest friends who like me and accept me for who I am. And I don't want to be controlled by anyone or turned into a government guinea pig." concluded Harry, sounding more and more frustrated and upset as the story went on.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

There was silence for a couple minutes as everyone digested all that and Harry sat there wondering if he had just said too much.

"Harry, forgive me but it sounds to me like you really do want to talk about all this." began Monica.

"You clearly have been through a lot and with no one to help you. No mum or dad, or friends. I think you need to trust someone. It seems obvious to me that trying to keep this all a secret is eating you up inside." continued Monica.

"Can't you ask Hermione to give that magical oath you were talking about? and then for us, well, we already have to keep the magical world a secret. No one would believe us about that or your space stuff even if we wanted to tell them. Can't you just trust us? Maybe we can help you?" asked Monica.

Sigh, Harry let out his breath. "I don't know. Maybe. I guess. Well, I don't want to ask Hermione to give that oath. The adults are one thing, but she really isn't old enough to understand the risk she'd be taking. I think you might be more concerned if you understood it as well." said Harry.

"Harry Janus Potter!" exclaimed Hermione. "I might not be all grown up, but I've read all about it and I know that the oath on my magic would not kill me it would only take away my magic if I divulged your secrets." fumed Hermione.

"Ah. Wait a minute. I thought your name is Harry James Potter? That is what the Daily Prophet newspaper said." asked Wendell.

"Well, yes that is my birth name. I sort of changed it. Has something to do with what happened to me. I guess I dropped that clue in there not thinking about it. Anyway, if I ever do tell the full secret, that will make more sense." answered Harry.

"Anyway. Hermione, I don't mean to say you don't understand how it works but are you really mature enough to make the decision to take that risk right now? Are you really ready to risk your magic for the rest of your life for something like this? I know you are curious, who wouldn't be. But, you've only known me for 2 months for goodness sake. Well, three and half if you count the summer vacation. But, still." exclaimed Harry.

"How about you Harry?" said Hermione.

"How are you mature enough to make all the decisions you've been making?" asked Hermione.

"I haven't had any choice Hermione. I've been alone and I needed to survive. Since then I've come to understand my full abilities, which are unique and what I can do that no one else is in a position to do." answered Harry, somewhat cryptically.

"You said you would be willing to show us some of this." said Monica.

"Are you still up for that? It might begin to fill in some blanks for us and help us understand better." continued Monica.

"Okay. If you all really want. I can beam all of us to my ship right now and we can travel from there to my space station which is currently in orbit of another planet. You will see when we get there. If you are sure you can live with keeping these secrets. You are probably right, people probably won't believe you, especially in the muggle world. I won't break my own rules about secrecy to keep you all out of the nuthouse if you decide to go wonky on me about all this." answered Harry.

All three Grangers shared a look that said, 'let's do it.' So, Wendell answered for them. "Alright, let's go then." And they all stood up.

Without saying a word, Harry had the Destiny transporters lock onto all four of them and with a ~bright flash of light~ and a ~transporter sound~ they disappeared and re-appeared on the bridge of the Destiny.

"So, there you go. See? Real. Just like I said. Have a look around. But, please don't touch anything." said Harry.

They spend the next hour just wandering around looking at things, asking question, muttering about how impossible all this was. Harry humored them knowing that it was a lot to take in.

"How big is this ship Harry?" asked Wendell.

"It is 747 meters long and roughly 518 meters wide at its wingtips." answered Harry.

"And you said it was built 50,000,000 years ago?" continued Wendell.

"Yeah, it's a long story." answered Harry.

Wendell figuring he didn't want to press just let it go.

"So, you said you also have a space station orbiting another planet. Can we go?" asked Wendell.

"Yeah. How would you like to get there. I can fly Destiny there, it would only take a minute actually. This ship is faster than unbelievably fast. Or, we can actually walk there through this portal over here that is called a stargate which will open a wormhole between here and a companion gate on the other side and we would just step through." said Harry.

"Let's fly the space ship." said Hermione, before anyone else could answer. She was actually hopping up and down on the balls of her feet in excitement.

"Okay. No problem. The view will be more interesting that way anyway."

"Destiny, leave orbit and take us to orbit of Bastion 100 km station keeping from Atlantis." ordered Harry.

"Order acknowledged." answered Destiny.

The Grangers watched through the viewport on the bridge as the ship jumped into hyper-space but they felt nothing.

A minute later, the ship dropped out of hyperspace several thousand kilometers away from Atlantis en route to station keeping orbit.

"The ship has reached it's destination. Beginning station keeping maneuvers." reported Destiny.

"Oh come on Harry. Did you just say 'Atlantis'? Did you name your space station after the famous city or something?" asked Wendell.

"Ah, Dad... look... "said Hermione, pointing at the viewport.

"Oh, I didn't name Atlantis either. That is in fact the legendary lost city of Atlantis and it is now all mine." replied Harry.

"What?!" exclaimed all three Grangers.

"If it makes you feel any better, it really was lost on the bottom of an ocean. Just not on a planet in this galaxy." continued Harry.

Monica looked like she was about to pass out. Wendell went over to her to support her. "Are you okay dear?" asked Wendell.

"Yes, just give me a minute. This is all just too much. This isn't possible is it?" asked Monica.

"It is very possible and true. Another long story perhaps for another time." said Harry.

"You said it is all yours? How is that possible? What about the people who lived there in the first place and how big is it? from here it looks huge?" asked Hermione who at the moment seemed to be the only Granger with her wits about her.

"Well, it's all mine because-finder's keepers? right? And well since I found Atlantis and claimed it, I have been installed by the city's central computer artificial intelligence as the new High Councilor and Ruler of Atlantis." answered Harry.

"Oh, and basic stats. It's area is 87 square kilometers and its dimensions are 10.57km diameter at its base. It is roughly the size of the city of Nottingham. It has a crew and military consisting of those 150,000 robots I told you about earlier. I had them created for that purpose after I got there. It was completely empty when I found it. And the city can support a residential population of about 2,000,000 people." continued Harry.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Wendell.

"Language!" exclaimed both Monica and Hermione.

At least Harry now knew where she got it from.

"Before we actually go over there, let's just stay here for a minute a look at it. I can't believe I'm seeing this. I need to burn this into my memory." said Monica.

"You also said you have been making plans Harry? With something like that and I assume Atlantis is capable of many amazing things, you could do almost anything I guess?" asked Wendell, suddenly realizing the potential at this kids fingertips.

"Well there is so much you don't know yet. But since you all are starting to believe in all of this now and hopefully getting over this shock, let me tell you a story about what's really going on out in the galaxy all around us..." began Harry.

And while they continued to drink in the sight of Atlantis, Harry spent almost an hour telling giving them an outline of the dangers and situation in the galaxy. Especially the Goa'uld and their threat, and the human worlds they possess and their history, even with Earth from it's pre-history. Mentioned some of the non-human races and what they are basically all about. He left out a lot, he was just trying to give them an impression of it and basic vocabulary of what he is talking about.

"Are you guys hungry or thirsty? I think we've been at this whole thing for a couple hours. I should've guessed when I came to visit Hermione today that I might be interrogated but it really wasn't the first thing on my mind." said Harry.

"Sure, that sounds good." said Monica.

"Destiny, replicate four standard human lunches and transport them to my ready room." ordered Harry.

"Order acknowledged. Lunch is in the ready room." answered Destiny.

"Shall we then?" Harry said as he led them to the ready room to sit and eat.

"Your computer AI sure sounds smart, it seems like it can do anything." said Wendell.

"It is extremely advanced. You need to understand that what people on Earth are now only experimenting with in regard to artificial intelligence is not even a fraction of what Lantean elementary AI can do." said Harry.

As they ate, Wendell pressed again on his question. "You mentioned plans Harry? What is it you want to do?" asked Wendell.

"I am going to infiltrate the Goa'uld Empire from within, uplift and improve the lives of their Jaffa and Human servants while gradually gaining a foothold, and then finally when the chess board is all set I'm going to vanquish the Goa'uld and free the people of the galaxy from them." answered Harry.

Wendell replied with a loud whistle. "Whoa there kiddo. That sounds like biting off a whole lot more than you can chew. Even with all this, how do you think you can do all that on your own?" asked Wendell.

"It's another long story. This ship Atlantis and the science and technology that I have recovered from the ancient legacy of the Lanteans-it is all vastly more powerful than anything anyone else in the galaxy has, even more so compared to the Goa'uld, but even relatively more than the other ancient races such as the Nox and the Asgard which I haven't even mentioned to you yet. The Lanteans, originally known as the Alterans trace their history back over 60,000,000 years originating in another galaxy and are the original form of the human race. They have seeded human life in many galaxies, ours is but one. The Alterans were the most ancient of the ancient's and the most advanced of all of them and the senior partner in the four great races alliance that protected this galaxy for 10's of millions of years." began Harry.

"Good lord. This all seems so unreal." said Monica.

"Now, here is a big shocker for you. Due to those very unusual circumstances I alluded to before, I am now one of the last surviving full blooded Alterans alive. The rest of Earth's magical community are the closest remaining descendant's of our race, cousins you could say. I myself was just one of those descendants until I was transformed into a full-blooded Alteran-due to those circumstances I do not want to talk about just yet."

"What does that mean?" asked Hermione.

"It means Hermione, that you are also part Alteran, part Lantean too. There are about a million witches and wizards on Earth compared to the roughly 6 billion muggles-those million all possess the Alteran Technology Activation (ATA) gene that will allow you to use Lantean technology. Without it you could not operate any of this. That is why I was careful to ask you not to touch anything earlier. The ship's systems will respond to you. Of course command authority for everything is locked down to only me at the moment." began Harry.

"Oh wow. This is going to change all of our history books." said Hermione.

"Well, not the written history, just the pre-history which is largely just myth or legend anyway. We will replace the myths with the truth, eventually." replied Harry.

"Since we are on this subject I suppose I should let you know that the magical powers you have is just a diluted version of what full Alterans had as innate abilities back in their day. There is more to this, but two key differences will interest you. An Alteran has 75% use of their brain capacity, whereas a magical person has 25%, and a muggle has only about 10%. This scales exponentially, so that the actual brain processing power and memory storage/recall increases exponentially from say 10% to 25% to 75%, so you see your brain capacity is very much more powerful than a muggle, then an Alteran far more so. In this I am different again because of the way I was transformed I actually have 100% use of my brain capacity."

Wendell and Monica were nodding their heads through some of that, knowing about the muggle or non-magical human brain quotient, and not surprised to hear about the difference for magicals but when Harry said what his was their eyebrows almost went through the roof.

"As for magic, Alteran's have the innate ability to sense and manipulate zero point energy, which is scientifically what our magical world has dumbed down to call 'magic' over the years. They have 100% access to their magic or zpe potential. The typical witch or wizard has about 25% access to said magic or zpe, and this one is a linear progression so a typical Alteran would be about 4 times more powerful magically." said Harry.

"There is actually another level above that which I have achieved that I don't want to discuss in detail right now, but my sensory perception of zpe and ability to manipulate has been enhanced beyond that of a normal Alteran like the rest of me. A story for another time perhaps. But this again Hermione is why everyone things I'm the most powerful. I am I guess but it's not in the traditional sense if you know what I mean." continued Harry.

"Actually I don't know what you mean. A lot of this is starting to go over my head too, just like Mum and Dad's I think. But, I get the context of it. So please go on." said Hermione.

"So, Wendell and Monica, at least one of you possesses these Alteran genetic traits as well for Hermione to have inherited them. The magical world would say that one of you is a squib, someone who has some ability to sense magic but no ability to use it. I can tell you that in every case that we know of in Lantean medical science, that is probably simply because your pineal gland, which allows our brains to access zpe for some reason is not developed enough to work in some people while it is in others." concluded Harry.

"Okay, you are talking about DNA. Suppose I understand all that, then where did the magical world which is such a small percentage of the whole world get these DNA traits from?" asked Monica.

"Ah. Bingo. You've asked one of the million pound questions." said Harry.

"While I'm answering that I can answer another question I'm surprised you haven't asked yet. Which is-if these Alterans and Lanteans were so powerful, where did they all go?" continued Harry.

"I was going to get to that one soon Harry." laughed Wendell.

Harry explained to them the plague that caused Atlantis to originally leave Earth 7.5 million years ago, their settling in the Pegasus galaxy, concluding with their 100 year long losing war with the Wraith, the bulk of their surviving population ascending and a small remnant sinking Atlantis to protect it and traveled by stargate back to Earth to remain here and live out their last days or later ascend themselves.

"This final bit happened just 10,000 years ago. The bulk of that group settled in the English isles, some settled in varying places around the world. Most ultimately ascended at the end of their lives, but almost all intermarried with the native human population of the time aka muggles, and their descendants are...us." said Harry.

"Hermione, two of these Lantean ancestors were named Merlin and Morgan Le Fey. Ring any bells? Their real Lantean names are Moros and Ganos Lal by the way." added Harry.

"Wow. Yes, that brings it all together now. That fills in a lot of gaps in how, why, when, even where." said Wendell.

"I suppose you won't like me reading between the lines like this and making the guess, but I take it that it was these ascended from the former race of Alterans that kidnapped you, transformed you, and sent you to the Destiny to begin your quest." said Wendell.

"Well, yeah. A little detail missing from that, but that is the gist of it in general. I suppose you want me to just come clean and fill in the rest of the blanks now too right?" asked Harry.

All the Grangers nodded their heads.

Harry hesitated.

Hermione took out her wand and before anyone could say boo about it, gave Harry a magical oath to keep his secrets.

Harry exhaled deeply and sighed.

"Okay then. Several crazy circumstances happened and then several more crazier circumstances happened. It's like this..." said Harry, and he explained the entire sordid scenario how this ascended Lantean Janus who used to be Atlantis top theoretical scientist intercepted a piece of Voldemort's soul that attempted to latch itself onto his body in his old curse scar, in a pocket dimension created by the Horcrux creating dark magic ritual-how Janus saw an opportunity to transfer his ascended essence into a modern living magical human and essentially absorbed Voldemort's soul energy or that sliver of it anyway and all his knowledge and took his place ensconced in hus scar.

"So, that was when I was a baby, the night Voldemort tried to kill me and did murder my parents." said Harry, starting to break up and sob a little bit.

"This is so hard to talk about..." Harry said quietly starting to cry.

Gulp. expressed Wendell and he looked silently at Monica for help.

Monica looked at Hermione who was getting teary eyed just watching Harry start to cry, so she moved over to Harry and engulfed him in a hug and patted his back and made soothing sounds like a mother would do. This only made him break down more and began balling his eyes out and crying so hard he started gasping for breath.

"It's okay Harry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want. We're sorry. I'm sorry. We didn't know. Please, it will be okay. Shhh." said Monica as she continued to hug Harry and rub circles on his back. Harry was astonished at how good this hug felt. He never had a hug before. He wondered if this is what it would be like to have a Mummy.

Harry started to get his composure back and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

"Sorry folks...I try not to think about it anymore and it's so hard to talk about. So embarrassing too. Okay, I'm just going to come right out and say it so I can move on past it to what really happened after." said Harry.

"I was severely abused by my relatives from the time I was left on their doorstep in the middle of the night the day after, you know... until I was nine years old. When I was nine, one day my Uncle Vernon was nastier than normal and after one of his regular beatings..."

Monica and Hermione both gasped out loud. Wendell just sat there with a stony and stoic look on his face...

"He drowned me in the bath tub and tried to kill me. Actually...he did, kill me that is." said Harry.

"How to explain this. Hermione, this is stuff that the magical world wouldn't even want you to know, it is forbidden dark magic." Harry said, looking at her parents for permission to continue.

Seeing them nod, he continued.

"So that Horcrux I mentioned earlier..." and Harry explained what a Horcrux is intended for and what Voldemort was trying to do.

"What happened is that when I died in the bath tub just for a moment. The soul of Janus who took Voldemort's place remember? passed on in my place. At that same moment, since I had absorbed the soul, life energy, and knowledge of an ascended being...who by rights should have never been in that situation either...you see how unusual all this is...I personally ascended myself for just a moment. My body transmuted into pure energy and I moved up I guess you would say into the higher plane of existence that the rest of the Ascended live on. As I was not meant to ascend at all, my body somehow which I've never actually figured out how or why- transmuted right back into my normal human form, but alive and I was right back in the cupboard under the stairs where I normally slept." continued Harry.

All three Grangers were in variations of crying or shaking their heads deeply in sorrow over this, or both.

"The thing is, it wasn't my 'normal' body, it was a brand new body, one purified with perfect Alteran DNA. I don't know if it's ever happened before to any of them so I can't say I am the only one ever, but at that point my physiology became even more advanced than any living Alteran ever had...somehow purified by the process of returning from the energy form back to physical. That is the transformation I kept alluding to before and dancing around the particulars." continued Harry.

That wasn't the end of it either. The 'Other Ascended' saw me appear before them just briefly and were startled by the whole thing, so their leader I guess he was summoned me back physically through the planes to them and then..." Harry explained all that the Ascended said about him and Janus and sent him to Destiny.

"So there you have it. Because Janus absorbed Voldemort and I absorbed Janus. I have all the memories, knowledge, and magical skill Voldemort had at the height of his power. Then since I absorbed Janus who was the most accomplished theoretical Lantean scientist of their modern era, I also know everything he did about Alteran science, technology, and where all their old bones are buried. And more than that, because Janus was ascended he had access to and held knowledge in his memories of anything he wanted to know in the lower plane of existence. That does not mean he and now I know everything there ever is to know. If it never interested him and he didn't bother to go looking, he still wouldn't know it. But for what it's worth what he knew I now know. And that is why I can do all of this stuff now too." concluded Harry.

"So, what do you think? Crazy or what?" said Harry.

"Harry, I am so sorry about your childhood. That has to be about the worst story I have ever heard. God, I am sorry I made you relive that and tell the tale. I understand now why you never wanted to talk about it. It isn't the science or magic bits at all is it? It's how you were treated, how your Uncle almost killed you?" said Monica in a low quiet little voice.

Harry didn't say much, just nodded solemnly and said, "Yeah."

At this point, propriety be damned and she didn't know if she even liked him like that, Hermione couldn't take it anymore and rushed over to Harry and gave him a great big hug and started crying and rubbing circles on his back like she saw her mother do.

Harry didn't want her to let go either but knew enough to feel more and more uncomfortable the longer this went on and risked a look at Monica that sort of said, 'help?'

"Look, why don't we take a break from this. You can take us to see Atlantis some other time. Why don't we take you kids home. Or rather Harry, you can take us home." Wendell started laughing.

"Then we can lighten things up for the rest of the day. You kids can go swimming. Harry you will have to stay for dinner with us tonight, okay?" said Wendell.

"Okay, that sounds good. Thank you Mr. Granger." answered Harry.

...

The rest of the day and that evening they didn't talk anymore about Harry's past or his life in space. They just talked about kid stuff the best they could. Harry had never been swimming before so Hermione was teaching him.

After dinner, Monica asked Harry if he would like to spend the night. No sense in going back to that big old space ship to be alone. He agreed and they put him up in their spare room.

Harry was just happy that they liked him and were going to let him stay friends with Hermione after all that. He figured they would think he was just too dangerous for her to be around. But he never voiced this worry.

...

The next day Harry renewed his offer to take them to see Atlantis and they accepted.

After getting a little tour and some more general explanation of things, Wendell asked:

"So, you started to tell us about future plans?" asked Wendell.

"Sure." began Harry. "Let's go into the command deck ready room so I can use the hologram projectors to illustrate some of what I am planning a little better. And we can sit and talk comfortably..."

...

"Remember how I described the Goa'uld? I think of them as little more than highly evolved, intelligent tape worms with genetic memory that attaches itself to our brain instead of our stomachs. They don't ask, they don't share. They just take, and they kill anyone to get what they want and to keep it. They use ancient technology scavenged from our race that our ancestors left laying around the galaxy millions of years ago, to masquerade as gods and enslave humans and farm them for hosts and soldiers." began Harry.

"Would any of you hesitate to go to the doctor and have them remove a tape worm from you if you had one? And then would any if you have any remorse for exterminating the parasite afterwards? All I want to do is go into the galaxy and free the widespread human populations from the infestation and enslavement by these jumped up tapeworms." continued Harry.

Harry brought up a display of the Goa'uld he has in captivity. "These are the Goa'uld I currently have captive on this ship. The ones who were stranded on Earth from 5,000 years ago. This snake looking thing is their actual body, this one calls itself Osiris. This woman here is a human host that currently contains the parasite that calls itself Hathor, yes, masquerading as that Egyptian goddess. This one calls itself Setesh, and until just the other day was the only Goa'uld still active on Earth. He was posing as a cult leader named Seth, exploiting several dozen people in a small suburban community near Seattle, Washington USA. He couldn't get off planet, so that has been his MO for the past 5,000 years. Just using his 'powers' to exploit people for his pleasure and profit while he pretended to live the life of a human in a stolen human body." continued Harry.

"Because they are intelligent and powerful with vast fleets and armies, I am going to use the technological might of Atlantis, some cunning strategy, and some underhanded tactics that some may say are immoral I will concede they may be amoral - to borrow some of their tactics and masquerade as a Goa'uld system lord myself, invade their empire appearing for all they know as another one of their normal internecine rivals, conquer them from within a bit a time, then bring them to justice or simply destroy them." said Harry.

"My tentative plan that is still on the drawing board will minimize actual fighting except in the very beginning. As part of the long term strategy I will have to actually fight and conquer a half dozen of their smallest system lords to obtain a domain that would appear formidable to their high council. Then once I have their attention and I can get an audience with their strongest lords appearing as an equal of sorts-they are a feudal society you see-I will use dark magic to enthrall them secretly to me one by one until I control their whole empire-through their continued faux rule, without each of the others knowing what I'm up to until it is too late. At the end I will end their dark magic enslavement and vanquish them all. Then I will reform the galactic Goa'uld empire into a new Lantean hegemony where I will bring up the quality of life for all the people and eventually introduce self-rule. I have additional ideas beyond that to deal with other malevolent powers in the galaxy. But that must be done first. Millions of humans out there are counting on someone to step up." said Harry.

"I guess that's the 60 year old not quite retired General side of me. What do you think?" asked Harry.

"That is a lot to take in. It is hard to remember that you are just an 11 year old boy when you talk like that." said Wendell.

"That reminds me if one more thing Hermione shared with us about what you said your motives for coming to school are, even though you've apparently already been educated in magic according to her-and its clear now that it is really because you absorbed that evil wizards memories. That you've come back to Earth to make friends your age and you are specifically looking to befriend young muggle born witches and wizards in your age group with a connection to the world of technology in addition to magic. With the plan you just outlined one might think you are here merely to recruit your Lantean magical cousins for your army or something? That could be viewed as very cynical to say the least." asked Wendell.

"Is that why you've befriended our Hermione? To recruit her into your plans?" challenged Wendell.

"Well I wouldn't put it as crassly as that. First it's not just Hermione. So don't think I've somehow singled her out or anything. It's just that in this short time she has become my best friend so far and has expressed the most interest in me and in helping me meet new people." answered Harry.

"But you are partially right and I think partially wrong with what I think you implied in your question. First I'm not here just to recruit people. Any friends I make will have value in my life as a friend regardless if they want to get involved in my quest or not. But it is partially true in that I am trying to meet people first who would be a better initial fit to understanding and dealing with all this. I think it is possible for example that some of the multi-generational so-called pure-blood magicals could also be a fit if they have the right attitude, aptitude and show an interest." continued Harry.

"But, if any of my friends join me in this, I don't want any of them to be soldiers at all. I will have plenty of those in the form of my human form replicator robots, my AI's, and the soldiers I will annex from the forces of conquered Goa'uld. I foresee fellow magical humans to be leaders in my new benevolent empire. Trusted generals, admirals, scientists, counselors, healers, administrators, and so forth to help me actually run all that Lantean technology and run the government that will eventually need to be formed and re-formed." continued Harry.

"Remember that any human help I need to operate Lantean tech. needs to have the ATA gene, which all magicals have. Plus they have the physiological advantages of their access to zpe, and with the higher brain function can rapidly learn from our knowledge repository and training simulators how to not only use, but to understand and become experts in Lantean science, technology, culture, law, arts, whatever. By the way Mr. and Mrs. Granger, I can also give any human the ATA gene with a simple injection supplied by our medical hologram. So, if you are wondering about that for yourselves for instance..." continued Harry.

"For all of that, I could do all of it myself anyway, with the help of the technology. But I want friends and companions. People who are like me and can relate to me. But I will go it alone if I have to. I'm not going to try to trick anyone or coerce anyone or force anyone, or any of that." continued Harry.

"Besides, I'll probably have a lot of it done by the time Hermione and the other kids my age even get out of school. I won't be waiting for graduation to begin my plans. I actually plan to begin the process sometime later this year. But there will be a build up period after the initial push that could last over a year in itself before proceeding to subsequent phases. Right now I have Atlantis mining, refining and stockpiling all the rare precious resources I need. I have a factory in the photosphere of Bastions sun mass producing a stockpile of our most exotic and most powerful power source, another long hi-tech story perhaps for another time. And I have recently launched 396 cloaked deep space probes that are gathering social intelligence and military intelligence against all known planets with stargates that have been active at all in the last 10,000 years or so. My current focus list of planets of high interest is down to about 100 or so, with about 75 planets of high strategic value for my immediate plans." concluded Harry.

"Well that as some answer. Okay I get all that now regarding your friends, I only advise you there not to make hasty decisions or take anyone for granted. You will need to open up more with people on some of your secrets though. I don't see many people signing on with you in such a dangerous life changing quest if they think you could be hiding some deep dark terrible secret or motive from them. You shouldn't entice them with promises of fancy adventures in space just to turn around and surprise them with the expectation that they will follow you into war. Just something to think about. Make sure people know what they could be getting into before they sign on to something serious with you." said Wendell

"Okay, I will Mr. Granger. That is good advice. Thank you." replied Harry.

"As for the rest, you have been busy haven't you? If I've read between the lines correctly, when you are done you expect to rule a galactic empire spanning 75 planets? Is that right?" asked Wendell.

"Well no, but close. 73, 74 tops." Harry replied cheekily with a grin.

The other 1 is Earth itself. I plan to leave Earth entirely out of it if I can. Luckily the Goa'uld seemed to have forgotten about or just decided to ignore Earth for the past 5,000 years. Then there is this planet Bastion, the only real planet I am personally claiming for Atlantis herself, and it is uninhabitable. It's just a resource world for me and a good uninteresting place to leave Atlantis in orbit and for any other reserve fleet ships I build in the future. The other 73 you're right, those are on the primary target list for my campaign.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry Janus Potter, sometimes aka Enki, Lord Enki or Overlord Enki; or Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic; and Supreme Commander Enki of the Avalon Fleet

A/N: The action gets started. Fast-paced. The relationship dialog is weak and at best corny, glib, and cliché-because I don't want to write about their relationships, just enough to show that they have them. Sorry, I put a lot of effort into dialog for my first story and I got slammed for it in reviews so I'm not writing that way anymore.

Chapter 6

During the remainder of the summer and the first month of Hogwarts, when Harry wasn't busy doing other things, such as pretending to being a normal wizard boy, going about that business, or socializing with Hermione and her parents. He made progress on the next steps to begin his plan. Before the new school year Hermione pleaded with her parents to offer Harry a place to stay with them so he didn't have to grow up all alone on Atlantis. After some convincing Wendell and Monica finally agreed. It wasn't that they were against it really because they liked him and felt sympathy for his personal story but, were worried what kind of trouble associating with him that closely could bring to their family, trouble that would outclass them by any measure. Eventually they offered and at the end of the day it was sort of a moot point because Harry declined. Very graciously. He was quite moved by the offer but, he decided on his own that what he is going to do is too dangerous to involve them in so closely. Hermione was hurt because she felt he was rejecting them, or her specifically. Harry didn't really know how to deal with that other than to promise he would still consider her his best friend if she still wants to be and keep her up to date with all of his progress.

While all that was going on, Dumbledore escorted Harry on a trip to visit Sirius at Azkaban before his trial. Sirius was very pleased to see Harry and mentioned that he knew it was because of him that Dumbledore got him a trial. But that Dumbledore wouldn't tell him any more about him other than what he could read in the Daily Prophet articles all about his return to the wizarding world. Sirius had put two and two together himself and realized that Harry must've told Dumbledore more but that he was sworn to secrecy. Harry said he couldn't talk about it with him yet either, especially there, but maybe someday. Harry didn't feel any particular emotional attachment to Sirius other than a little misunderstood nostalgia he felt for the entire connection to his deceased family. He told Sirius that he needed to see that justice was done for his parents sake and that after the trial if he is fully cleared of all charges he would like an opportunity to get to know him better.

On Atlantis he designed and had built 2 special Goa'uld imitating flag-ships. Each 7.5 times the size of a standard Ha'tak, at 5100 meters diameter at its base (see Anubis flag-ship) and each staffed with 6,000 Jaffa impersonating HFR's, 324 Al'kesh, 1,296 Death Gliders, and 16 plasma beam cannons impersonating Goa'uld staff cannons that are amped up from Goa'uld standard power but quite dialed down from Lantean standards, which is to say they can 2-shot any standard Ha'tak instead of 1-shot them, and possesses shields that cannot be penetrated by even its own plasma weapons. For all intents and purposes it would look like and fly like and fight like a very advanced and very large Goa'uld ship...at least when operated or commanded by a Goa'uld. But secretly, hidden in spaces off limits to anyone other than Harry it is powered and protected by modern Lantean technology. When he commands it, it can perform like a comparably sized Lantean Battleship with the lower powered plasma weapons and of course minus the drones. The purpose is two-fold, the first to make the appropriate shock and awe impression on other Goa'uld System Lords when they come up against him and to make the same impression to his captured Goa'uld subordinates during his conquest; and the second is to actually perform defensively like a Lantean Battleship when he needs it to. One will be permanently stationed at Eskal and serve as Capitol Headquarters, and not usually used during expeditions. The other will be his personal flag-ship and remain in station keeping with Atlantis, which he will personally command during expeditions. These were both completed and launched by September 30, 1992. In time for him to begin final preparations for the first external steps in his conquest.

During this time, Harry put finishing touches on his faux Goa'uld image. He determined through Atlantis medical database what a safe trace amount of naquadah would be to inject into his blood stream so that he would be sensed by other Goa'uld as a host. With simple magic he can flash his eyes and change his voice to that of a Goa'uld at will. And of course he would wear a kara-kesh just to finish out the part. He might even use it from time to time to keep up the charade.

As planned, Harry officially launched his campaign on October 31, 1992. A date that for him will always live in infamy. Having already conditioned Hathor and Setesh for their roles and enslaved them with invisible slave collars, he awoke them from stasis aboard one of his faux Goa'uld flag-ship's in orbit of the planet Eskal.

"Kree, Hathor and Setesh. Kree Tal Lok - Enki, son of Tiamat." said Harry.

Both Hathor and Setesh knelt before Harry.

"I have lived in isolation long enough. Today I begin a campaign to take my rightful place as Emperor of the Goa'uld. You Hathor will be my First Prime and will lead the forces of my Empire in my name. You Setesh, will serve Hathor faithfully as her under lord and assist her in these endeavors. You both will remain loyal to me and only me for the rest of your lives. Do you understand?" said Harry.

Hathor and Setesh's eyes flashed and they both said in unison, "Komah Ata, Lord Enki."

"Hathor, I have chosen this planet Eskal to be the Capitol of my new empire. I will land my new mother-ship and it will be based here. You will command this ship and my forces while I am away. Know that the areas that are marked for restricted access are off limits to you and all other Goa'uld or Jaffa unless I countermand that order." continued Harry.

Harry made sure they do not access any of the spaces where the true Lantean technology powering this ship is hidden. For all intents and purposes the controls and abilities of the ship appear to be traditional Goa'uld except a little bit smarter in layout, and of course 7.5 times as large and incalculably more powerful than an actual Ha'tak, but they don't realize that and won't until or unless they see the ship in combat. They do believe that with it's sheer size that it is at least the better of 10x the strength of a standard Ha'tak, therefore they possess a satisfactory amount of awe for this ship.

The only other major differences are the 6,000 Human Form Replicator's he specially designed to look and act like normal Jaffa warriors, with the exception that they really do not carry a Prim'ta and since they are not organic they are much more durable and strong. He doesn't hide this fact from them. He merely gloats that the secret of the power to create these servants are his and his alone, and it only serves to increase their awe of him. Not that they have any choice in the matter, their slave collars ensure they behave and act as if they are in awe of him regardless of what they would normally wish to feel.

"I am going to be traveling a lot working on other aspects of building my empire. In the meantime I want you to use these servants and warriors to begin building up infrastructure on Eskal and prepare for larger conquest. You are to re-mark and mark any new Jaffa that enters our ranks with my symbol, the Caduceus." began Harry.

"Then you are to return to your old domain planet of Javabli and re-assert your power over the people and their resources in my name and begin moving all of the mined resources back to Eskal where we will concentrate a ship building campaign. Once you have established Javabli within my empire, you will go to the planet Neone that was once controlled by Niirti but is long ago abandoned by her, and do the same bringing Neone into my empire. Do all of this with subtlety, stealth, and secrecy from the rest of the Goa'uld. Have no other contact with other Goa'uld or their Jaffa or other agents or representatives, unless I command it. Also for security purposes all stargates within the empire are to be locked down with gate shields, and any use of them to transport to or from any gate not within my empire requires my prior authorization." continued Harry.

He paused to ensure she understood all that and had no questions.

"You need to know several things that have occurred with Javabli in your long absence. First remember that you have been gone for 5,000 years, almost 166 generations of the humans you transplanted there from Mesoamerica on Earth has grown quite a bit since then. They have remained in isolation from the rest of the Goa'uld collective." continued Harry.

"The priesthood you left in charge to rule in your absence has not faltered in 5,000 years. They still worship you and await your return. You should receive a warm welcome but, understand that their population and the size of your priesthood to keep up with it has grown tremendously. There are now about 3 billion humans living on the planet, still gathering resources for your return. In addition to your original mining operations, they have developed a large economy naturally, even though they remained primarily an agrarian society due to the efforts of your priesthood. Their medical science has not grown all that much during that time or else you might have found twice as large a population. They have progressed handily in mechanical and structural engineering over the years and have begun to use some of their abundant resources such as trinium for their own construction of tools, machines, and buildings. They have not discovered the full nature of what naquadah can do yet such as superconductivity and its use as a power source, however they have learned that it will amplify explosions so they long ago started using the raw ore for that, otherwise you will merely find huge stockpiles of the stuff. Let them honor you, and you will honor them and treat them warmly in return." continued Harry.

"Now listen, this part is very important. We are going to deviate from the old, stagnant and inefficient mode of operation in dealing with our Jaffa and Human subjects. Instead of simply treating them as slaves and as expendable, with no rights-You will begin treating them with benevolent intentions. Use the new servants and warriors I've given you to help the people re-build their infrastructure, uplift their ability to self-govern their local towns, provide for their education, health care, and overall quality of life, and so forth. You will not horde all of these things for yourselves or allow your underlords to do so. We will rule the galaxy as benevolent rulers, and the people will love, admire, or at least respect us for our actions, not serve us merely because they fear us. Is this understood?" said Harry.

"Yes, my Lord." said Hathor, and Setesh repeated her words.

"Very well, Kel Vak. Begin the work and raise me on long-range communications to report when you have both Javabli and Neone brought into the empire and when they and Eskal are ready for your next orders." concluded Harry.

...

With Harry back on Earth, attending Hogwarts, he kept in regular contact with Hathor and the progress of his new empire using Destiny as a communications relay to his mother-ship on Eskal. Whenever he spoke to Hathor he had Destiny automatically augment his image and voice to that of his Enki persona to maintain appearances.

Around Easter time in 1993, Hathor contacted him to report that Eskal, Neone, and Javabli are firmly subdued and under control by her in his name for the empire. That large quantities of trinium and naquadah have already been moved to Eskal, with regular shipments coming from stockpiles non-stop and that his servants have finished constructing the necessary factories to refine and produce finished materials necessary for ship and ordinance construction. She also informed him that as he commanded, she brought a large number of the elite of her priesthood to begin an annex on Eskal awaiting his commands for the missionary work he has planned for them.

Harry decided to visit Eskal in person to inspect the work and make ready for next steps. On this trip he had Hathor with Setesh in tow give him an inspection tour of all three planets, especially Javabli where there is such a huge population. She introduced him as Enki, Supreme Overlord of All, God of Wisdom and Magic and her Ruler. That they are to worship him as they have worshiped her and that she remains his patron goddess for Javabli. Great feasts and celebrations were held in honor of the arrival of Lord Enki that he would honor them with his presence. Enki announced that their empire will soon begin a grand ship building campaign and raise a large Army on their Capitol planet Eskal, to wage a campaign to free the other human's in the galaxy who are enslaved and mistreated by rogue gods who have fallen out of his favor. He said if they are with him they will be greatly rewarded and that soon the priesthood would announce a program to accept volunteers into his new Army. Great applause and support was shown to Lord Enki and Lady Hathor across the world. Setesh was introduced to the people and it was announced that as Lady Hathor's First Prime he would from then on take up his permanent residence on Javabli as under lord to maintain a permanent liaison to his Lady Hathor and Lord Enki. A great palace was commanded to be built for Setesh, which suited his personality just fine. His enslavement to Harry will ensure his loyalty and that he follows orders. He is there only to play a role after all.

Harry and Hathor returned to Eskal and he ordered her to begin building four great ship yards in orbit of Eskal, four great factories on the surface for manufacturing of weapons, and many barracks and training facilities to train the new Army they will create.

Following that, with Hathor in tow, he visited the Eskal annex of the Javabli priesthood and had Hathor repeat for them the introduction of him she gave to the people and priests on Javabli. These priests will become the Enki priesthood but, otherwise follow the same custom and practices of their home-world. Harry figured, go with the flow and use the trained resources that were handed to him. It would save a lot of startup time. When they need more for their numbers as they expand, they will recruit from Javabli as necessary, working through Hathor and Setesh to coordinate their needs. They will begin to prepare for missionary work that will see them spread the government of his empire to all new worlds that they conquer. They will be on the point of instituting new reforms for all captured worlds, to uplift the Humans and Jaffa living there to the new ever increasing standards of living and quality of life within the empire.

Most importantly, one of their key roles will be to dispense the Jaffa cure to on all worlds that enter their domain. Harry presented the priesthood with samples of the serum and explained that it will be produced in as much quantity as they need by the crew of his flag-ship. This will remove the Jaffa dependence on a Prim'ta and restore their human immune system. They will begin with curing all children prior to Prim'ta age so that they never need it to begin with and then all adult Jaffa. The serum will kill an existing Prim'ta which will upon receiving the serum eject itself from the pouch on the host body and die. It was explained that over the following month, the pouch itself will heal over and be absorbed back into the body. After subsequent generations, these Jaffa would evolve back into their normal human physiology and the Jaffa slave race would eventually become a distant memory, although they are free to continue to call themselves Jaffa if they want, to preserve their culture as they see fit.

If Hathor could think for herself at that moment she would be incensed beyond belief. As it was she just smiled and prattled on like it was partly her own idea.

"Hathor, you have done a very good job so far. I am proud of you. Please have my servants build for you a magnificent palace on Eskal for your own headquarters. Keep serving well and your rewards will be great. Use a portion of my new Enki priesthood to return to Javabli to work with Setesh on a mission to begin the recruiting process for the new Army and when there is enough recruits to start, begin housing them in our new barracks and training them in our new training facilities. Also, take another portion of our Enki priesthood along with 500 of my servants to establish a colony on Neone. First, absorb the existing small population of Humans and Jaffa there into it-cure the Jaffa as per standing orders, then begin an recruitment campaign to immigrate volunteers from Javabli that would like to help pioneer the expansion of the settlement of that planet." said Harry.

"Now that we have the basic infrastructure and processes taking shape for my plans for conquest, see this next phase is done and contact me when the shipyards and factories are ready, and make sure to give me good news about the progress of the recruitment and training of our Army. Then we will begin the next phase." concluded Harry.

"Yes, my Lord. It will be done." answered Hathor.

...

By mid-summer, a little after Hogwarts let out for Harry and Hermione's second year and just before the Grangers were ready to leave for their vacation with Harry accompanying them as planned, Hathor reported to Harry that all of the construction projects he last ordered were complete. That the colony on Neone had been established and a total of 2,000 humans had re-settled there so far. Additionally, the Army recruitment was in full swing and there were now 24,000 recruits barracked and under training by his warriors.

"Very good. Begin using two of the shipyards to mass produce new Ha'tak continuously until we possess 28 of them. Use each of the two other shipyards to mass produce new Al'kesh bombers and the other for Death Gliders, until we possess 3,024 and 12,096 respectively. In the weapons and ordinance factories, mass produce a quantity of all standard weapons and bombs, with at least 60,000 staff weapons, 60,000 Zat'Nik'Tel, 60,000 suits of armor with my Caduceus marking, and 240,000 Tok'Kal shock grenades. After that, automatically replenish these levels of air wings, ordinance, and weapon stockpiles as they are drawn down. Meanwhile, work to bring up our recruits to the minimum 56,000 level to fully crew all of our new Ha'tak, with another 100,000 reservists to remain stationed on Eskal and for deployment as force protection for new worlds that we conquer. Once you are ready to train the reservists, manufacture the equivalent amount of hand-held weapons and armor for them. Have the 50 Jaffa warriors transferred from Neone to Eskal to take up position in the training center and have them train new trainers among our Javabli human warriors, to assist my warriors in training all of our recruits how to fight with our weapons and how to pilot our Al'kesh and Death Gliders." ordered Harry.

"Yes, my Lord. It will be done." answered Hathor.

...

When Harry arrived at the Grangers to get ready to accompany them on vacation they pounced on him with many questions.

"So Harry, how have you progressed on your plans to liberate the galaxy, so far?" asked Wendell.

"Hermione told us that you keep in regular contact with someone over there but she said all you really say is that things are progressing nicely." continued Wendell.

"Do you guys really want to know about this stuff?" asked Harry.

"Remember, this isn't fun almost 13 year old Harry stuff, this is Lantean High Councilor conquering the Goa'uld throughout the galaxy stuff. It is going well and a lot has been accomplished on the plan but, it's not exactly fun stuff or in any way light-hearted conversation material." continued Harry.

"Sure, we told you before we would stay interested in this. We have two days before we are supposed to leave for our trip, so if you want you can bring us up to date." continued Wendell.

"Okay, sure. Let's go up to Destiny and I'll show you what's cooking." said Harry.

Then the four of them beamed up to Destiny and he flew them over to Bastion in station keeping of Atlantis.

"So, as you know I finished my final plans and first stage preparations at the end of last summer and during my first month of our school year." began Harry.

"Look out this viewport and you will see in orbit and station keeping with Atlantis, one of the two fake Goa'uld mega flag-ship's I created for this purpose." continued Harry.

"Whew. That thing looks nasty and it is big. That's a lot larger than a normal snake-head mother-ship isn't it?" asked Wendell.

"Yeah, and snake-head?" asked Harry.

"Yeah, since you told us that 'Goa'uld' actually means 'god' in their language, I'm not calling them that anymore. I'm not giving them that kind of respect. After all I still believe in the same one true God I always have." answered Wendell.

"Well, you have a point. I will call them snake-head from now on too, in the company of humans of course. When I'm out there doing my job, while in Rome and all that..." said Harry.

"Anyway, it is 7.5 times larger than a standard snake-head Ha'tak. I built them this way to provide appropriate amount of shock and awe. If this were just a normal Goa'uld ship it could defeat a small Goa'uld fleet all by itself, which is the impression I want it to give. As it is amped up by Lantean tech, this ship could defeat several large Goa'uld fleets simultaneously." said Harry.

"The fact is that for regular battles and engagements between my forces and the snake-heads I will be using and relying on all standard snake-head ships and technology because it is the best way to play the game and make sure I don't get caught out ahead of schedule. They are powerful enough in numbers against their own kind. So, I intend to vastly outnumber my opponents with standard snake-head Ha'tak when I need to fight, and later I hope there won't be any real fighting. This is all still toward the goal of establishing the so-called Lord Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic 'persona'-in the eyes of the snake-head hierarchy." concluded Harry.

"You really have thought this through to detail haven't you?" asked Monica.

"Yes, ma'am. I've got to. This is a serious game. Winner takes all kind of stuff. A lot of people are depending on me." answered Harry.

"So, tell us what else have you done so far?" asked Wendell.

Harry spent the next hour giving them an outline of major accomplishments and what is in queue at the moment. His little empire already consisted of 3 planets that were just there for the taking thanks mostly to his fortuitous capture of Hathor.

His new 'Capitol' planet initial infrastructure had been set up for some time now and includes 4 large orbital shipyards, factories on the surface, barracks and training for troops. Currently there are 28 Ha'tak and their accompanying air wings and ordinance under construction, and 56,000 warriors to crew them being trained and another 100,000 reservists.

"That is basically the size of it right now. You see for much of it I just sit back and give orders to kick off what I need done next and my snake-head thralls who are very experienced at doing all this, take charge of the on-site leadership needs, and the 6,000 Jaffa shaped HFR's take care of providing her the smart labor and resources she needs to get things done-and take care of the Lantean style secret things I need behind the scenes for me without her any the wiser." concluded Harry.

"Are you going to get more directly involved yourself when you get into the fighting phases of the campaign?" asked Wendell.

"Yes. I plan to be there in person for all of those engagements to make sure everything goes to plan and if not I can improvise. Plus, a portion of each engagement includes me taking the opportunity if I can get one to capture and enthrall the enemy snake-head so that I can easily annex them and their forces into my growing empire after the battle, thus reducing bloodshed and time to get this done, while assimilating and expanding resources and forces as I go. Heck, there may even be opportunities in some cases to just show up in force, ask for an audience with the head snake-head in that domain, enthrall them and take them over without any bloodshed. I have to be there to do that though." answered Harry.

"I see. Well, I don't like it. We've become quite fond of you. You are like a member of our family now. We don't want to see you get hurt. But, we have some idea what you are capable of. And your plan does make good sense in a benevolent Machiavellian sort of way. I will just pray for you and worry about you, okay?" said Monica.

"Of course Mrs. Granger. I understand and thanks." Harry said with a smile.

...

Meanwhile, back in Cheyenne Mountain...

During the past almost 11 months, after Harry left Earth without their stargate yet with proof of alien life and the implication of other human civilizations and threats out in the galaxy. The US having no special edge on the other world powers and not liking to sit naked on the knowledge of this possible threat to the world. They decided to share this knowledge with their closest allies who together started a joint black ops program to do research and development and hopefully someday joint production of their own space faring and defensive capabilities-to protect Earth if any of the bad that Supreme Commander Enki alluded to ever comes their way. They have no idea how out-classed they are, they figured quite a bit. But they have to start somewhere.

To this end, a renewed Xeno-Archeology program was started headed by none other than Dr. Ernest Littlefield due to his unique experiences and the research he'd already done in the field as it were. Catherine Langford joined him in starting the program and they recruited a young Dr. Daniel Jackson whose recent conference papers and lectures on related theory struck very close to home for them. Plus they were getting too old to do the leg work anymore and they needed to find someone they had faith in to groom to take over for them in due course. The program grew with additional expert contributors joining from among the rest of their allied partners. With Dr. Littlefield's research and Dr. Jackson's keen eye they determined the true nature of the stargate, the nature of the addresses, and so forth and really wished they had their stargate back.

The alliance consisted of the: USA, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Israel, Australia, and South Korea. The allies decided to call their alliance the Avalon Alliance and the unclassified codename for the program would also be Project Avalon. They decided to make use of the now otherwise unused stargate facility under Cheyenne Mountain for their world headquarters and left General Hammond in command of the military side of it.

Through squirrelly black ops funding and the usual unaccountable accounting tricks and outright lies, the alliance reached an annual black budget of $1 trillion by the end of its first year of operation, 3/4 of which came from the US as is par for the course, since they are the only country that can print that much money and hide it in the economy and from Congress and the people so easily. It also helps when you have the power to change the definition of what inflation is or isn't and can publish whatever numbers you want with no real accountability.

By the end of Project Avalon's year 1 the Xeno-Archeology branch had developed a complete lexicon of Alteran, Nox, Asgard, and Furling language with translations into each of the alliance members native languages. Based on Dr. Littlefield's research notes they concluded that their friendly visitors could only have been the Alterans, confirmed by the hints Supreme Commander Enki dropped during his visits. They also established on paper initial plans for research, development, and the leading candidate ideas for design of a new space program; and all the right agencies and many of the right scientists and engineers had begun to bulk up the R&D side of the program, ready to lead into the next phases.

With the budget secured they made plans for year 2 of the program to include building real infrastructure to begin carrying out the material and logistics side of the program.

On September 30, 1993, Hathor reported to Harry that the initial strike force for the next phase of his campaign is ready. 14 fully crewed, armed, and operational Ha'tak standing by. With that he informed her that they will begin their offensive campaign on October 31, 1993 and that he would be there to command the forces himself. The targets for the next phase will be in this order: Qetesh and her 1 planet, Ares and his 1 planet, Mot and his 1 planet, and Ramius and his 1 planet. These four minor Goa'uld are currently not firmly under the boot of any one system lord or they serve one in tribute but are not in frequent contact with them, and will be easy to cherry pick. At the conclusion of this phase of the campaign, this will bring Enki's empire to 7 planets, and possibly 4 more Goa'uld under lords and all their resources.

October 30th came and Harry made his excuses at Hogwarts, beamed to Destiny, flew to Bastion, boarded his personal mother-ship and flew to Eskal.

"Hathor, I have arrived in orbit of Eskal. You will leave the headquarters mother-ship on the surface. Take command of one of the Ha'tak as your command-ship and launch the fleet to rendezvous with me in orbit." ordered Harry.

"Yes, my Lord." answered Hathor.

A little while later, all 14 Ha'tak had joined Harry's mother-ship in orbit.

"The fleet is ready and we are standing by my Lord." reported Hathor.

"Very well, I am transmitting to you the coordinates of Qetesh's planet, Frwontu. We will arrive in orbit at 2,000 km and I will temporarily block all stargate's on the planet or in any of her ships from operating and we will...negotiate...from there. If any ships try to escape after we arrive, destroy them." ordered Harry.

"By your command my Lord." answered Hathor.

The ships traveled to Frwontu and exited hyperspace 2,000 km above the planet as planned. Harry used his command of Lantean technology to disable all stargates on or in the vicinity of the planet. Then he located Qetesh in the throne room of her main pyramid complex still unaware of his arrival, with her 3 Ha'tak still on the surface.

"Hathor, launch squadrons from 7 of our Ha'tak and wait for orders." ordered Harry.

"By your command my Lord." answered Hathor.

Harry transmitted himself as a hologram directly to Qetesh's throne room on the planet.

"Kree, Qetesh. Kree Tal Lok - Enki, son of Tiamat." said Harry.

"Arik, Enki. Kek mattet." replied Qetesh.

"Qetesh, even now I have your planet surrounded by 14 of my Ha'tak and my personal flag-ship, with 7 full squadrons of air-wings ready to begin bombardment. You have but 3 Ha'tak and they sit idly on the surface. You are vastly outnumbered. Kree Lo Tak!" said Harry.

"Kree! Jaffa. Verify this worm's story!" Qetesh said to her First Prime, having him check with their forces to see if what Harry said is true.

A minute later the Jaffa returned running back to Qetesh.

"It is as he said my queen. We are surrounded and our forces trapped on the ground." the Jaffa said, head bowed in shame.

"You dare invade Camulus' territory, he will destroy you when he hears of this insult." said Qetesh.

"My dear Qetesh. Camulus is a dog who will die in his own turn. If you are obedient I might even allow you to kill him yourself. Now. Will you surrender and serve me, or is it time for you to die?" asked Harry.

There is silence for a moment as it appeared Qetesh was thinking about how to get out of this situation.

Another Jaffa barged into the throne room and said, "my queen, 7 Ha'tak are entering the atmosphere preparing to land surrounding our forces, screened by their air-wings."

...

"Wise decision Qetesh. Dismiss your Jaffa for a moment I would have a private word with you." said Harry.

After the Jaffa leave, Harry beamed into the throne room and immediately levitated a slave collar bound to him onto Qetesh.

"How may I serve you my Lord?" asked Qetesh.

"Very good." said Harry.

"You will report to Hathor aboard her command Ha'tak in my fleet and follow her instructions. You will serve her as under lord and work to bring your planet and it's people and resources into my empire. Your Jaffa will be re-indoctrinated to the Enki priesthood, and you will follow Hathor's lead in establishing my priesthood here and improving their quality of life. Hathor will explain to you everything you need to know." replied Harry.

"Oh, and you will also work with Hathor to have your three Ha'tak sent back to my Capitol world Eskal for re-fit and to have your air-wings and Jaffa crews fully topped off. Your force strength is far to under-staffed and unprepared to serve adequately in my empire." added Harry.

"Your will is my command, my Lord." answered Qetesh.

Harry transported back to his flag-ship and comm'd Hathor to let her know of his capture of Qetesh and her new allegiance to him, and the orders he gave her and to be expecting her for standard instructions for assimilation into the empire.

The first world gained from offensive action and not a shot fired or human life wasted. Harry was proud of himself, but he knew this luck would not hold each time. Qetesh lived up to her reputation as a bit of a sloth.

"Hathor, once all forces all recalled and ready for travel and you have sent Qetesh and her Ha'tak en route to Eskal to re-fit, we will proceed to our next target, Ares on planet Arkhan." ordered Harry.

A few hours later waiting in orbit of Frwontu, Hathor sent the signal that they were ready and the fleet made way to planet Arkhan to confront Ares.

Upon arrival, Harry found another Ha'tak entering orbit at about the same time they were. Other than that, no Goa'uld forces seemed to be present at all.

As Harry's flag-ship and 14 Ha'tak appeared in orbit of Arkhan, Ares aboard his lone Ha'tak spotted them and comm'd them to find out who they are and why they have trespassed in his territory.

Harry comm'd Hathor and informed her that she could respond and deal with Ares however she saw fit, all in his name of course.

Therefore Hathor threatened Ares to submit to the will of her Lord Enki and their superior forces or face annihilation. She would take this planet in the name of Lord Enki.

Ares, not being as good at war as his name-sake would suggest and figuring that since he had a full complement of Air Wings and that most Ha'tak did not always have a full complement, thought he would take his chances against Hathor and her forces. Perhaps he could not see clearly or could not count either. In any case, he launched his Air Wing of Death Gliders and Al'kesh against Hathor and her 14 Ha'tak. She responded with the full force of 14 Air Wings of Death Gliders and Al'kesh, while Harry remained out of theater in his flag-ship just watching. In less than 10 minutes, with Hathor's forces taking a few casualties in Death Gliders and Al'kesh, all of Ares fighter/bomber support had been destroyed and his Ha'tak ablaze in fire and unable to move.

At that point, Hathor re-stated her demands for him to surrender and Ares did so. She ordered an Al'kesh to pick him up and any other surviving Jaffa and transport him back to her flag-ship under heavy escort.

Once Ares and his surviving crew were aboard she ordered the derelict Ha'tak destroyed and Ares kneeled with his head bowed to Hathor in supplication.

Then suddenly there was a bright flash of light and a sound of transporter beam and Harry appeared on the bridge of the Ha'tak facing Hathor and Ares.

Hathor paused silently in surprise except let out a little gasp, not knowing that Lord Enki could transport between ships in that manner without rings.

"Rise Ares and meet your new Lord and Master, Lord Enki." commanded Hathor.

As Ares turned to better see Enki he said, "I do not recognize the name Enki. Shree tel manak. Who are you really?"

Hathor smacked Ares hard in the face and said, "You will not disrespect your God Gonach!"


	7. Chapter 7

Harry Janus Potter, sometimes aka Enki, Lord Enki or Overlord Enki; or Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic; and Supreme Commander Enki of the Avalon Fleet

Chapter 7

"Thank you dear Hathor, I will take it from here." said Harry as he flashed his eyes and levitated a slave collar onto Ares.

Ares calmed and said, "How may I serve you my Lord?"

"That's better." replied Harry.

"Ares, you will resume your lordship of planet Arkhan, but as under lord to Hathor, subject to my empire. It is a shame you lost your last Ha'tak in your arrogance. We will allow you to go undefended for your stupidity until you prove your worth and the worthiness of this planet to join my empire." said Harry.

"Hathor, process Ares and his remaining Jaffa the same as Qetesh, and begin to assimilate Arkhan into the empire." ordered Harry, as he disappeared in another flash of light.

When he returned to his ship it was to have the AI inform him that sensors have detected a hidden Lantean gate-ship on the planet. Harry ordered it beamed up to his landing bay and secured. He would investigate it later.

After Ares was sent on his way with orders, Harry instructed Hathor to meet him with the fleet at their next target, Mot who secretly maintains lordship over the planet Natania even though his master Ba'al abandoned it centuries ago.

When they arrived in orbit of Natania there was nothing to greet them. The planet below seemed to have few inhabitants living in a pre-industrial society and by the looks of their dwellings, quite poor.

"Hathor, take a wing of Al'kesh with a wing of Death Gliders for escort, and go to the planet surface to investigate. Find out if there are any Jaffa or Goa'uld present or who their master is." ordered Harry.

"By your command, my Lord." replied Hathor.

A couple of hours later, Hathor reported that " the village is in poor condition and intel. is confirmed that Lord Mot is their ruler, as they continue to mine the last scraps of dried up naquadah mines on the planet. The people are poor and abused. We found one spy among the people who is in possession of a long-range communication device. His orders were to inform Lord Mot should any unusual circumstances occur on the planet." said Hathor.

"Very well, order the spy to summon Lord Mot, having him cut off in mid-transmission so that he cannot give specific information." said Harry.

"Yes, my Lord." replied Hathor.

Not long after a lone Tel'tak appeared near the village. Having spotted the wing of Al'kesh and Gliders, Mot realized this might not be good for him, so he attempted to flee through space only to be caught by Harry in a tractor beam and brought aboard his flag-ship.

"Hathor, secure your prisoner and await further orders. I have captured Mot aboard a Tel'tak attempting to escape the planet." said Harry.

Not one for wasting time, Harry put a slave collar on Mot and said: "Mot, kneel before your God, Lord Enki, son of Tiamat, God of Wisdom and Magic."

Mot complied and asked: "How may I serve you my Lord?"

As Harry does with each new thrall he scanned his memories and this time he determined that even with his new policies he doubted he could make Mot appear to the human population as a redeemable Lord. His reputation was long and sordid, mostly by Baal's design, but nevertheless.

Additionally, the population here was poor and few and the resources of this planet were mostly tapped out. So, instead:

"Hathor, I have decided that we will re-locate the entire population of Natania to Eskal. It will be far easier to uplift their quality of life and opportunities there. And we needed to bolster our civilian population there anyway. See to it that a representative of my priesthood comes here to have that done and remove any resources of value to bring back with us. We will proceed to the final target, just leave 1 Ha'tak here with instructions for your Jaffa to protect and assist the priests with this and then return to Eskal."

Harry placed Mot into stasis, being unsure he could serve any useful purpose at this time.

The next day when the fleet arrived at Ramius's home-world he found much the same as on Mot's planet. The planet had about the same size population as Natania but average resources and the people did not appear nearly as poor or abused. Ramius himself was easy enough to capture. He had no ships and only 500 Jaffa. He practically begged to join up with Lord Enki. So, he did, with a slave collar to seal the deal of course.

Harry decided to do the same with Ramius' world as he did with Natania. The entire population was to be relocated to Eskal. Ramius himself would serve Hathor as under lord and governor of Eskal itself, thus providing a full-time presence of a Lord for the growing civilian population there.

With those orders given, he ordered the fleet to return to Eskal. The entire campaign took roughly two weeks with most of the time killed traveling back and forth across the galaxy.

Harry took stock of what he accomplished. He was content with it in that things went as planned but, less than satisfied in the amount of people or resources he was able to liberate from the Goa'uld.

He figured the decision to essentially abandon Natania and Ramius' world was best strategically since it gave him two less planets that are widely dispersed outside of the core of his domain. No need to expend resources protecting them when they were of no value.

So, he now had fully 7 planets under his control as planned, but only 5 will be occupied and protected. If Ares doesn't get his act together on Arkhan, it may end up going the same was as these last two, but he's inclined to give that planet a go because it is actually rich in resources and has a decent sized population that should thrive and grow under his rule.

From Natania and Ramius' world he liberated and emigrated a total of 4,000 men and women, and their children to Eskal; from Frwontu he assimilated 3 more Ha'tak and a population of 14,951; and from Arkhan another population of 7,475. Each of those planets would also contribute their fair share of valuable resources. And finally another 4 Goa'uld under lords, although he plans to keep Mot on ice for a while, maybe forever. The population of Eskal had risen to 200,000 by this time, mostly military but the civilian population was growing quickly. As this city was being built new from the ground up and influenced by Harry's own thinking, the place was very modern and industrialized. No one who came to live on Eskal lived a pre-industrial life anymore, and everyone attended school, which was now mandatory for all young.

Back on Eskal, with the burgeoning of his reserve forces and the growth and success of his priesthood and civilian populations, he followed the plan to give the campaign a rest at this stage and give the priesthood and the military time to assimilate their gains and stabilize the populations and defenses across his little empire.

Toward that end, he gave orders to station 2 Ha'tak at each of the 4 smaller populated planets, one will remain on the surface and the other in orbit at all times, to ensure a rapid threat detection and response-and 6 Ha'tak deployed 3:3 at all times for the defense of Javabli which is the crown jewel of the empire's population and resources. Additionally, a full brigade of 5,000 human warriors from his new Army will be based on each planet for its security and defense. All of these will be under the command of their local Goa'uld under-lord acting as governor, reporting back to Hathor as prime minister on Eskal; whom of course reports to Lord Enki, as Emperor. The remaining 17 Ha'tak would be stationed at their Fleet headquarters on Eskal, with at least 8 in orbit in rapid response readiness at all times. These would immediately be dispatched to reinforce any of their worlds that come under attack. While concluding re-apportioning resources from the latest campaign Harry investigated the gate-ship he recovered and found that it was actually an experimental time-ship. Something to experiment with later when he gets back to Earth.

Having finally found a suitable job for Mot that will use his experience but keep him out of the face of civilians, Harry formed a fleet headquarters on Eskal aboard the HQ flag-ship to coordinate the commonwealth defense and security of all planets in the empire and maintain regular real-time comm.'s with the military units forward deployed on their remote planets. Therefore Mot was assigned as General of the Army, reporting to Hathor. One thing neither Hathor or Mot was used to is that their new Army was becoming more staffed with human warriors than Jaffa. As a consequence, they approached Lord Enki with a request to develop weapons and armor more suitable for their average smaller frames and weaker constitutions. Having agreed with that premise, Harry began to design new field gear for his Army.

Harry returned to Hogwarts by around December 1, having been gone an entire month. Dumbledore, knowing his agreement with Harry wasn't bothered by it, but he was still very curious as to what he could be doing all this time. And, a freed and finally fully healthy Sirius was being brought to the school as assistant DADA instructor, a position that he will take full-time the start of the following year.

Harry had been dodging his godfather, trying not to get too close to him right now, for every other good reason including not wanting the man to think he could waltz into Harry's life and take over like a father figure. He had put Harry off by implying that very thing early on. Since Dumbledore had suckered Harry into a meeting and his godfather was there, he told him that if he would swear the same magical vow of secrecy that the Headmaster did that he would bring him into the loop. But, he also warned him that whether he liked it or not, Harry was living his own life and was not in the market for a supervisor.

Sirius agreed and with that Harry brought him up to speed with what Dumbledore knew so far and then told them both exactly what he'd been doing the past month and the year before that and the year before that, and told them as much as he had told Hermione and her parents what his plans for the future are.

Now that both men were up to speed and Dumbledore now knew more than he had even known before, they understood with this knowledge from the ancient Janus and everything else he learned in that state that there was nothing either of them could teach him or tell him other than to give him the benefit of their advise or wisdom, when it would apply. They promised not to try to meddle too much because they knew so much of it was over their heads. Dumbledore left the conversation thinking about how there was so much more to this story with Harry and now knowing that all witches and wizards got their powers from being descendants of that race, he had much to ponder on. Sirius just felt like he really wanted to be a part of Harry's life and offered to join him in his adventures if he would have him.

For Harry's part he just said, "Perhaps someday. For now, just stick with your plans here at the school. I think there will be many more new things to do in years to come, after I take care of this Goa'uld thing. I really don't need help with that. Honestly anyone from Earth would just get in my way right now. Most of what I am doing offensively is covert action and subterfuge. The fewer people involved the better. I think... I hope... that someday once the galaxy is a bit safer and less insane I might venture to try to re-establish an Alteran colony with people from our world who are compatible who might like to give that a go. But, I think that is years off from now. Just something to think about. When that time comes I think you both can be very involved." concluded Harry.

Meanwhile back at the Avalon Alliance on Earth...

During their program's second year and with their annual budget and logistics fully started up, the alliance began a two pronged effort of terrestrial based research, design, and prototypes for unit testing the new space technology they had in mind - while they simultaneously began secretly building an orbital shipyard that they plan to use to construct and dock their first real prototype explorer class space ship. As part of this segment of the program they first had to establish a ground base of operation.

The hope was that the basic infrastructure of a shipyard will be in place in time for when their first finished prototype designs are ready to begin actual construction. They were building the orbital shipyard to be essentially just giant, flexible and practical space scaffolding with minimum habitation and workshop zones that they should be able to adapt to any final ship building design. This way the two efforts could proceed in parallel and shorten the development time.

The first Earth ships' main engine will be powered by 16 Thorium Salt nuclear reactors. This form of nuclear power is immensely safer and even more efficient at generating power than standard Uranium based reactors and has been known about for almost as long. But this form of nuclear power generation was dismissed by the military industrial complexes of the world early on because it did not produce weaponizable by-products like Uranium reactors did, hence why Uranium got funded, approved, and built and Thorium Salt didn't.

These reactors would power up an Ion Propulsion System (IPS) of up to 16 corresponding massive Xenon ion propulsion engines. The ship will be able to achieve cruising speeds of up to 90,000 meters per second or 200,000 mph, which put into perspective-the American space shuttles top speed is 18,000 mph.

This would facilitate travel time of about 1.5 hours from Earth to the Moon not counting the time necessary for the IPS to get up to cruising speed-or, more importantly to Mars at its average distance of 140 million miles, in 700 hours (1 month). It was determined that at that speed, manned expeditions to Mars were now feasible.

The prototype ship will also have two theoretical experimental electron cyclotron resonance ECR engines which could provide a sort of turbo thrust. These will have to be finished and proven in space aboard the prototype once the ship gets into trial runs.

This first ship will be large and bulky, focused on power and shielding both for their reactors and the exotic particles of space, for its size it will support a relatively small crew initially and most of them scientists and engine and reactor engineers.

Harry made a couple meet and greet visits back to his empire in his Enki persona to 'show face' and assist Hathor and company with the job of stabilizing the unity of their young empire, and military and civilian populations.

Otherwise, he spent time finally making some progress at Hogwarts with his goals of forming his own loyal following of muggle-loving fools, as he'd heard Malfoy flippantly go on about. Harry was aware of the Room of Requirement and first introduced it to Hermione and then their extended group of friends which now numbered a core of 12 students including himself and Hermione, consisting of their original little brain-trust study group and Harry's little muggle-connected clique. Harry warded the entrance to the room so that nothing he reveals in the room can be revealed outside of the room by any of its occupants. He let them know that for this reason they would not be able to discuss his extra-planetary business even among themselves except in this room.

They used the room to study of course, but Harry also began tutoring them on some basics of Alteran knowledge, techniques to practice wandless and wordless casting focusing more on will and intent than actual incantations and wand movements. Without revealing the secrets of how he came upon this, he built upon the knowledge they already had of his background and explained more about their Alteran heritage, his ship Destiny, and finally he revealed the existence of the formerly lost city of Atlantis to them.

As they became more and more interested and appeared faithful to Harry's causes he shared with them his general goals of developing a cadre of muggle-aware witches and wizards who might someday be willing to accompany him in starting a true off-world colony to start a re-birth of their legacy, to bring the Alterans back to the stars. The only catch? Harry intends to remain the imperious leader of all this. With the Alteran colony established it and he would eventually be revealed as the liberator of the galaxy and become the head and elite of the empire, a new Alteran Hegemony established over the galaxy with him as it's Emperor.

He decided to not add the little complementary power-mad cackle at the end even though he wanted to just for laughs, because he thought that might be too much too soon and might turn some of his new friends off.

As it was, and these being kids and all-they really just thought this was cool and they really liked Harry. He was their hero in the wizarding world in the first place, and now this. If he wanted to be Emperor in space, let him be. He did say benevolent didn't he? And he seems to live up to that. So, they were all-in, as they say.

Eventually the group decided to begin to branch out and seek out like-minded people from the other years at Hogwarts, and even siblings for those who had them, and so forth. The key was to keep the big secrets in the inner circle and in this room at least. He modified the ward on the room to allow the occupants to speak about things he specifically gives them permission to. So these 10 formed Harry's inner-circle who would go on to be Harry's inner circle for years and years to come. With one other as his right-hand woman, you guessed it-Hermione. They were starting to become more than friends as well. By now, everyone else in the inner-circle new that Hermione was Harry's Number One, and that if they couldn't find him they could run things by her and he would usually be fine with it.

Harry's Inner Circle consisted of: Hermione, plus: Terry Boot, Sue Li, Lisa Turpin, Padma Patil, and Parvati Patil (the 'brain-trust'); and Justin Finch-Fletchley, Kevin Entwhistle, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Hannah Abbot (the 'muggle-raised').

...

The following summer by Harry's 14th birthday Hathor reported that the newly assimilated planets and resources were stable in his empire and they were ready for a next phase of conquest whenever he was. Harry took the time to first introduce and have her mass-produce new weapons for his mostly human military. Not wishing to reveal to much advanced technology he stayed away from the best he could do with nanites and so forth, but still worked to ensure a more effective suite of gear and weapons.

He used the best examples of Earth muggle technology but he spared no expense, so that all of his warriors had full Kevlar reinforced, Trinium coated body armor, with special visors and helmets that contained state of the art field vision and communications. The Trinium coating offered a degree of protection from grazing shots of a Zat'Nik'Tel or Staff Weapon by dispersing and absorbing some of the energy. He re-designed the Zat'Nik'Tel into a new standard side-arm that performed the same functions but more amenable to standardized human use, except that the three kill modes were now settings as opposed to consecutive squeezes of the trigger. And he redesigned the Staff Weapon into a standard carbine form factor that had settings for single, semi or fully automatic fire, and unlike a staff possessed laser targeting scopes and could be used as rifles. The warriors still carried the superior Tok'kal shock grenades, but added to their arsenal the latest in Earth military Fragmentation grenades, both the M67 anti-personnel and the latest thermite incendiary grenades. Finally, to boost their survivability he made a re-designed variant of the hand-held healing device that could be operated by anyone, not only someone with Naquadah in their blood; had them mass-produced and now all his warriors carry their own personal healing device they can use to heal themselves or each other.

By the Fall 1994, Harry's empire was at full military strength with his human army fully trained and equipped with their new gear. Leaving two Ha'tak in orbit of each of his five protected planets under command of Mot at their Capitol on Eskal to maintain combat readiness for any rear-guard action (the other two uninhabited planets only maintained one company of warriors to guard the stargate and landing platforms), Harry had Hathor gather the bulk of their fleet, 21 Ha'tak plus Harry in his flagship to rendezvous at Natania. Since Natania had been abandoned of all but it's gate he decided to use it as his embarkation and debarkation point for future offensive actions so that if anyone traces their movements, they would trace the bulk of them to here and find nothing of any value if they did.

Having sent cloaked Al'kesh to confirm the force strength assessed by his satellite network at each of the two main planets in Moloc's domain, they found a smaller force of 3 Ha'tak all on the surface on Cana supervising mining operations, with the bulk of his forces at his Capitol world Phoena, consisting of 6 Ha'tak on the surface and 3 in orbit. The rest of the planets within his domain were largely unsettled and had no forces to speak of. They ignored them to be swept up in the assimilation process later.

Harry deployed 9 Ha'tak to Cana under Hathor's command to subdue and capture Moloc's forces there. He took the remaining 12 with his flagship to confront Moloc and his 9 Ha'tak at Phoena. They staged their arrival over both planets to occur simultaneously so that Moloc could not summon reinforcements from one to the other.

After arriving in approach of Phoena and shutting down the local gate network, Harry had Mot engage each of the 3 orbiting Ha'tak 4:1 which would have been enough by itself, but he thought it was time to make a demonstration of his flagship's power.

Just as Lord Moloc was attempting to hail the invading forces, he witnessed the monstrosity that was Harry's flagship twice fired 3 simultaneous plasma beams at each of his 3 Ha'tak whilst they were already being pounded by the forward staff cannon's of 12 Ha'tak. The first hit took down their shields, and with the second hit, Moloc's 3 Ha'tak exploded in an orgy of light and debris. The engagement took only 3 minutes.

Harry projected himself via Hologram to Moloc's palace throne room.

"Lord Moloc, Kree. I am Overlord Enki, son of Tiamat, your God. Surrender now and I will allow you and the remainder of your forces to live and serve my empire. Fight and I shall torture and kill you a thousand times and revive you to watch you suffer nine hundred and ninety nine times."

Harry noticed that instead of responding, Moloc attempted to operate the stargate on his planet, presumably to flee or to call for reinforcements from Cana.

"Do not be foolish Moloc. I have dispatched my servant Hathor to Cana with another 9 of my Ha'tak which even now subdues your forces pinned to the surface there the same as I have you outnumbered and pinned to the surface here."

"Hathor is dead for 5,000 years and I have heard of no System Lord called Enki." replied Moloc.

"You do not need to believe I am who I say I am, you simply need to see as you do with your own eyes that I outnumber you and command forces that far outclass your own. I am being generous with my patience. Either surrender peacefully now and order your forces to follow me, or die. You have one minute to decide." ordered Harry.

In the meantime, Harry took this minute to contact Hathor and receive a brief status from her. Unfortunately, the three Ha'tak on the ground with no contact with their god, decided to attempt to launch and fight Hathor. She had them pinned down 3:1 as they attempted to enter orbit and destroyed all three Ha'tak before they could get off any significant shots at her fleet. She reported the planet is taken and Harry ordered her to land 3 Ha'tak to secure the stargate, and await further orders.

A minute later, "I refuse. The Council of System Lords will not tolerate this action and my ally Lord Ba'al will see that you pay for your outrage." said Moloc.

There was a bright flash of light and Moloc appeared 10 feet in front of Harry on the bridge of his mother-ship. Immediately he was subdued by a slave-collar.

"There is one other choice Moloc. I can enslave you to my will, and you will worship and obey my every command." said Harry.

"Yes, master. By your will." answered Moloc.

"Very good Lord Moloc. You will return to the surface and inform your Jaffa that you have decided to join the magnificent empire of Overlord Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic. You will then contact your Jaffa on Cana and your other minor holdings and inform them of the same, ordering them to surrender and obey Hathor. Oh, and Moloc, as of now your policy of sacrificing young females is at its end. Inform your priesthood of this, especially your high priestess Ishta and while you are apologizing for your atrocities in ruling their people, inform her that while Overlord Enki admired her work in saving the lives of young females in the domain, that any further rebellion will not be tolerated. But that for now she and her people have general amnesty for their past actions. This will be the first of many reforms to improve the lives of my people. Understand?"

"Yes, master. By your command." answered Moloc.

Then Moloc disappeared in another bright flash of light and Harry released his hold on Moloc's stargate network. He then contacted Hathor to let her know the status and that as soon as Moloc communicated to his Jaffa leaders via the stargate, that she should begin standard assimilation protocols for these two planets, their people, forces, and resources. He will await her arrival at Phoena and they will reinforce with Moloc's Ha'tak and plan their next incursion into Morrigan's domain.

A week later, in orbit of Phoena, Hathor transferred to the surface to take direct control over assimilation of Moloc's domain, including putting the fresh face on their rule and policies. She would inform the priesthood of their merger with the Enki priesthood and also that Moloc would no longer serve as their Lord, that Overlord Enki would find other duties for him as penance for his crimes against the people. This was meant to engender some loyalty from Ishta and her people by means of liberating them and bringing them into a kinder, gentler empire. Meanwhile, Harry assigned Moloc to command of his Ha'tak fleet, while his former remaining 6 Ha'tak remained at Phoena for rear-guard protection and to begin their re-education process.

Harry's intelligence network determined that Morrigan held about the same force strength as Moloc but her Ha'tak were spread out more evenly with 4 at each of her 3 primary planets Magtireth, Gleanavor, and Danu. Like Moloc, her many minor planets were only staffed by defensive garrisons of Jaffa, enforcing their smaller human slave populations and mining efforts there. Never the less, he still sent cloaked Al'kesh to confirm the force strength. It always pays to double-check these things.

The other problem was that this time they did not know which planet if any that Morrigan was presently on. They knew that her palace is on Magtireth along with the Eye of Balor, but she had a reputation as quite a busy bee. Who knew if she was even around. If she wasn't and he was unable to subdue her, they might have to fight and destroy all of Morrigan's forces to take her domain. He wasn't worried about winning per se, he still had each planet outnumbered 7:4, not that those are overwhelming odds. At those numbers, retreating Ha'tak could escape. The only place he could be sure to pin them down would be wherever he personally deployed with his flagship.

Since he decided to divide his forces into three units, he sent for Mot to come join him and command one of the fleets. He wasn't concerned about losing if he continued to have surprise on his side, but at this point he did not know if the word had gotten out about his campaign yet. Would she or the others be expecting him, and would she have allies lined up to reinforce. It would not take long before the taking of Moloc would be noticed either way.

Figuring he would go where the odds took him, Harry Enki deployed with his flagship and one fleet of 7 Ha'tak to Magtireth where he hoped to catch Morrigan. He had another 7 Ha'tak led by Moloc to go to Gleanavor, and finally Mot with 7 Ha'tak to Danu. At the appointed time all three fleets arrived over their targets. Harry immediately disabled Morrigan's stargate network and scanned for her. Luck was with him as he found her in her throne room. Hoping to upset the entire defense this time he did not wait to open any communications and beamed her directly to the bridge of his ship. He immediately moved to subdue her with a slave collar but she managed to block him with a shield from her kara-kesh.

This was only going to slow him down in any case as he had her surrounded by 36 of his elite personal guard. She stood there guarding to maintain her defense, while Harry gave orders to his 7 Ha'tak to engage her 4 Ha'tak. He knew that similar engagements would begin on the other two planets.

"Morrigan, I am Overlord Enki, son of Tiamat, your new god. You are the most formidable of all the System Lords I have yet faced 'Phantom Queen,' but your millennia of strategic experience will fall to my sheer power. Surrender now and you and your forces can serve me in my new empire." said Harry.

"You cannot defeat me you worm. You come here with this hulking monstrosity and only 7 Ha'tak? I will destroy you and if there is anything of worth in this mess I will take it into my own domain." replied Morrigan, not stopping to consider that Overlord Enki just beamed her directly from her throne room to the bridge of his ship without the limitations of a ring transporter, a technology he ought not have as far as she would know.

"My dear Morrigan. As we speak two more fleets of 7 more Ha'tak each, one under the command of my underlord Moloc, and the other under the command of another of my underlords Mot, are subduing your planets and their 4 Ha'tak each at Gleanavor and Danu. To be sure, your forces will put up a fight. But mine will win. And let me assure you that this hulking monstrosity has the firepower to destroy an entire fleet of Ha'tak by itself. Do not think that I came here unprepared. I am moving against the Council and I will rule the entire galaxy and all Goa'uld domains will fall under my empire. Take a seat by my side and serve me as the true Queen that I know you are, or allow another Goa'uld line die here now. You have one minute to decide." replied Harry.

While she ponders that, Harry gestured for her to watch out of the forward viewport as he pressed a button on his command console and two powerful plasma beams lanced out one after the other to strike one of her as of yet unengaged Ha'tak under full shields and watched it explode in an inferno of plasma and naquadah explosions. Two shot. Her shields did nothing except fall on the first shot.

With that display, Morrigan appeared to be shaken a bit, as she should be. Then sighed and relaxed her posture a bit and dropped her shield. "Lord Enki, I see that I have no choice. I accept your terms." answered Morrigan, while inwardly thinking 'until I find a good opportunity to backstab my way into controlling your domain too, you fool.'

Immediately, Harry telekinetically subdued her with a slave collar and said. "Very good Morrigan. You've made the right choice. Come here and speak over this hologram projection to your forces on all three worlds, ordering them to surrender and informing them that you and your domain will owe their allegiance to me and my Empire going forward." ordered Harry. Of course, all Morrigan's previous thoughts of backstabbing were overtaken by events (OBE, as they say).

Morrigan did as ordered while Harry received status from the other fleets. With no communication with Morrigan her forces loyally attempted to defend against the more powerful forces of Enki at Gleanavor and Danu. At both planets, 3 of 4 of Morrigan's Ha'taks were destroyed, and 1 each in Harry's fleets were destroyed. This marked the first time his forces took any such losses. At Magtireth the only loss was the 1 Ha'tak that fell to Harry's demonstration.

With this phase of the campaign complete Harry turned his attention back to fully assimilating his recent gains from Moloc and Morrigan. He comm'd Hathor and told her to assign an underlord to continue the work of assimilating Moloc's domain which she started over a week ago and to travel to Magtireth to begin the same process with Morrigan's domain, which contained twice as many planets and population as Moloc's had. The next issue was that Morrigan's domain was the closest of all the others in Harry's empire to most of the rest of the System Lords. Therefore he decided that Magtireth would become a remote center of military power for his Empire, and to guard against incursion from the others.

From Morrigan he also obtained two more Goa'uld underlords of hers, Sholred and Evnith. Until it turned out that Sholred was a Tok'ra spy. With Harry's telepathy this was easy to spot. He called Sholred to a private meeting with him and informed him that he would be held in the brig, comfortably-until he thought it was time for him to allow Sholred to deliver a message to the Tok'ra for him. The time would come when he wished to open a dialog with them, but not quite yet. Until then, he would have to wait.

From Morrigan, Harry obtained another 5 Ha'tak and 3 more prime worlds that needed to be assimilated. Additionally, Harry obtained the Eye of Balor which he took for his own trophy case back on Atlantis. He instructed Hathor to work with Morrigan and construct 4 more shipyards in orbit of Magtireth, and to build on the surface, military barracks and training facilities and a remote HQ to mirror that of the Capitol on Eskal. And that once those shipyards are ready to build 18 more Ha'tak to bring his total force strength up to 60. Then upgrade his planetary deployments to 3 each, one in orbit at all times of the 10 protected planets, with the remaining 30 split up 15 at Magtireth and 15 at Eskal until called upon.

At this point Harry had obtained an Empire spanning 10 major protected populated worlds, 2 others which he abandoned and dozens of other minor worlds that had mostly small defensive garrisons and small human slave mining populations. He doesn't normally count those minor worlds in his Empire PR, but he has Hathor and Mot assimilate and manage them all the same. If you include those you could say Harry now controlled almost 50 planets and outposts from his gains; and 42 Ha'tak, 14 of which were added to his forces by capture, and at least 10 major Goa'uld, and a lot of other minor ones that he enslaved that still serve his major underlords as their underlords. Work has to get done after all.

He figured that this would be enough to gain the attention of the Council of System Lords, to begin the next phase of his campaign. Until then he instructed Hathor along with all his other Goa'uld underlords to assimilate all new planets and forces into his Empire and make ready for the next phase of conquest. He would allow Morrigan and Moloc to attend any Council meetings or attend to any extra-domain System Lord duties while keeping their loyalty to him secret for now. At this point only Ba'al and Ra himself and someday Anubis not that anyone knew he was coming either, could claim as many planets and forces in their domain as Enki could. It would soon be time to make them aware of his presence. It would be a race to see if they would discover him and what he had done before he felt secure enough in assimilating his gains to reveal himself.

Despite the fact that Harry didn't allow Sholred to go free to the Tok'ra, with that as well as other undiscovered espionage Enki and his domain did finally get the attention of the Tok'ra. They were now beginning to redeploy some spies to see if they could get a full sitrep on this Enki and figure out his strengths and weaknesses, etc. It would be a little time before they figured out that Enki was now one of the top 3 Goa'uld powers in the galaxy.

With this done, and Hathor and company doing their duty, Harry decided he could return to Earth and to Hogwarts and continue his personal mission there, as well as 'live a little.'

...

"Hi Mione, I'm back...again." said Harry.

"Hi Harry, so how is the galactic empire business doing?" asked Hermione.

"Very well. I just returned from what I hope will be the final hot phase of war in my campaign to conquer the Goa'uld. As of now, my domain is one of the top 3 strongest Goa'uld strongholds in the galaxy. I am letting my people get caught up assimilating all our recent gains and re-stabilizing things again before I put my cards on the table and finish the job." replied Harry.

"Nice. So, are you gonna spend the rest of the year here at school with us mere mortals? and when are you going to finally take me out there to see all this?" asked Hermione.

"Yup, unless Hathor or Mot call me with news bad enough to make me get back out there ahead of schedule. Oh, and when your old enough and your parents allow it." answered Harry.

"Harrrreeee!... Okay, well then, two things. You can take me on our first Hogsmeade Weekend date that you promised ... and you can meet with the Inner Circle to see what they've cooked up for expanding the membership of our little club." said Hermione.

"Believe it or not Mione. I am looking forward to that date. I know it doesn't seem like it with all the other stuff I'm doing, but I am looking forward to being a teenager for a little while too." replied Harry.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry Janus Potter, sometimes aka Enki, Lord Enki or Overlord Enki; or Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic; and Supreme Commander Enki of the Avalon Fleet

Chapter 8

Later that evening, Harry and Hermione met with the Inner Circle to go over the progress they've made to expand their club. At a previous meeting they decided that each of the 10 would try to recruit 5 more people each, in an effort to expand to another 50 students in the 'club'. Harry modified the ward on the entrance to the room to let them discuss just enough that they would need, to try to feel out other people's interest. Harry also knew that at this point, word of their club and some general idea of what Harry was doing would get back to the faculty and to the Headmaster. This is a big part of why he has allowed Dumbledore to believe he trusts him enough to tell him things (under the oath of secrecy at the risk of his magic of course). He will only be teaching members of his club some of his advanced knowledge of wandless magic, and knowledge of his science and technology. What harm can that do? He's only attracting and accepting good upstanding members of light side families anyway.

Harry noticed that members of his Inner Circle had begun pairing off like he and Hermione did. Terry Boot and Lisa Turpin were now dating, as were Sue Li and Kevin Entwhistle, Padma Patil and Seamus Finnegan, Parvati Patil and Dean Thomas, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Hannah Abbot.

The group had success in their endeavor as it turned out that there were students already queued up with interest in the original Harry Potter fan-club that sprang up when he first returned; and a number of other students were becoming jealous that the 10 monopolized all of Harry's time and went off to secret study groups together and didn't include them. So, they got their 50 more students who were interested. Mostly Gryffindor's and Ravenclaw's, with some Hufflepuff's. No Slytherin's ever expressed an interest which was fine by Harry because he wasn't about to trust them anyway.

Some of the more notable new students interested in Harry's club which so far is only euphemistically known as 'Club Harry', who will begin attending as of the next meeting include: Ginny Weasley (of course), George Weasley, Fred Weasley, Lee Jordan, Colin Creevey, Dennis Creevey, Romilda Vane, Jimmy Peakes, Katie Bell, Alicia Johnson, Luna Lovegood, Orla Quirke, Stewart Ackerley, Rose Zeller, Ernie Macmillan, Susan Bones, and the list goes on across all year groups. Having started this now he missed out on some of the older years who were around when he first started, but the new younger years that come behind them will remain a fertile ground for them to recruit from for some time...or forever if Harry has his way. If the school never gets around to banning his club once they see so many of them eventually leaving the wizarding world and the planet on the whole in the future, after he 'graduates' his plan is that he will appoint a new 10 to be the Inner Circle leaders of the club from the upper years, replacing them as needed each year as people graduate, and they would continue to recruit 50 new members each year, rinse and repeat. This is his way of getting what he thinks will be the cream of the crop of trained wizards and witches starting with people who have a genuine interest of their own. Harry has no plans or intentions of trying to recruit the whole or the bulk of the wizarding world to his cause. He doesn't want to make the effort nor does he want to get involved inside their politics.

Anyway, with his Hogwarts 'Club Harry' plans beginning to form a recurring process, and while Harry was busy being a teenager for a little while and pretending to be a student at Hogwarts, the galaxy continued to spin on. Hathor and company made good progress bringing all of their holdings under one banner, the Caduceus and the Enki priesthood; and lives were improving for everyone. No Jaffa in the empire required Prim'ta anymore and were slowly integrating back in to human culture. Of course much of the galaxies former Goa'uld human culture had many trappings of Jaffa culture anyway since they were the elite class of slaves under the Goa'uld. In any case, they were merging into one culture and Jaffa in the empire soon began reverting to thinking of themselves as ordinary humans, just ones with a Jaffa history, and for their part the more numerous humans in the empire (thanks to the large population of Javabli), were beginning to accept the former Jaffa as humans. The Enki priesthood taught non-discrimination.

The curing of the Jaffa did not go unnoticed by the Tok'ra or the Council, as word had made its way back there too. Harry's empire had grown too big to keep all sources of leaks bottled up. Elements of his empire had dealings with the shady independent Lucian's, who in turn had shady dealings with Goa'uld and Tok'ra.

The Tok'ra see this as a positive development along with the intel. the began receiving that this new Goa'uld Enki was trying to rule as a benevolent leader, even providing education to the humans and not treating them as slaves, which was a major blasphemy to the Goa'ld. The Tok'ra sought to discover his motives, and members of the Council wanted him to stop his activities with the Jaffa and some were lobbying Ra to allow him to join the Council as an official System Lord, to maintain the general peace among them, and to impress upon him their rules.

It was nearing the end of the school year when Harry received a communication from Hathor, relayed from Morrigan, that a small diplomatic fleet of 3 Ha'tak sent as an envoy from Ra to Magtireth wherein she was contacted to relay an invitation to Lord Enki to attend the next Council of System Lords to be officially recognized and inducted.

"So," Harry thought. "Ra has learned of my conquest and knew enough to contact me at Magtireth so he knew Morrigan was now part of my domain. Interesting." Sending a communiqué back to Ra, through Hathor and Morrigan, Harry accepted the invitation to attend.

...

At his next and last meeting of his Hogwarts Inner Circle for this school year Harry told them:

"Well, if things go to plan it looks like I will be Emperor of the entire Goa'uld collective by my 15th birthday." said Harry, as he proceeded to tell him of the invitation he just received and the high level outline of what he plans to do at their meeting.

...

There was time for a quick visit with Hermione and her parents after school before Harry had to go attend to the business with Ra and the Council.

Hermione brought up the issue of being able to go out and see this stuff with Harry at some point and her parents said, "maybe after Harry finishes this last big phase of his plans with the snake-heads, then it might be safe enough 'out there' for them to let her travel some with him."

By the last week of June Harry was back on Eskal with his flagship, finishing plans for his attendance at the Council.

This is the big move. The chessboard is set. But it's also personally the most dangerous move he has made to date. He is expected to walk in there alone coming in one small shuttle no larger than an Al'kesh, with only one human Lo'tar servant. Of course that's not what he's going to do. Only what it will look like he's doing.

First, his human Lo'tar will actually be a fully weaponized nanite human form replicator that will only pretend to be a Lo'tar. Harry's personal (visible) backup. Aboard his Al'kesh will be another 14 of the same HFR's wearing phase-shift devices rendering them invisible. After Harry and his Lo'tar Hank enter they will follow invisibly behind him and take places out of phase behind each of the System Lords as they are seated.

They will debate a little while, he will ensure they are all relaxed in casual routine conversation over the matter, just to catch them as much off-guard as possible. Then with his neural interface to his HFR's he will command them each to collar their respective Goa'uld targets.

Additionally, it will only look like Enki came in a lone small Al'kesh, whilst his flagship hovers in station keeping over their pathetic little space station fully cloaked with a transporter lock on him at all times.

As Harry reviewed his plan over and over again, he could find no flaws in it and continued to wonder to himself just how stupid, arrogant, and gullible these Goa'uld were. The model of complacency. Of course it doesn't hurt that he has the deus ex machina relative dominance in science, technology, and magic on his side and a Machiavellian streak a mile long. But still, they've made this so easy.

Harry arrived in his flagship a day early, cloaked near the Hasara space station. He wanted to watch them arrive and count the number of ships and get a good final estimate of how many would be attending in case he needed to make any last minute changes to his plans.

Over the course of the next twenty-four hours he watched the 14 different Al'kesh and Tel'tak arrive. The Tel'tak are small and would carry little, probably only the Goa'uld and their one Lo'tar. Any Al'kesh could carry more and he wouldn't risk scanning them to verify occupants, just to make sure his cover stays secure. He is too close to blow it on a technicality now.

Finally, all had arrived according to his reckoning, so he flew his uncloaked Al'kesh with his retinue to the station and docked. Harry double-checked to make sure he looked like a Goa'uld impersonating Lord Enki of Sumerian legend would look, and made sure he was appropriately Goa'uld enough to fool this crowd.

So, Harry as Enki was introduced by his Lo'tar Hank to the Council. "My lords, please allow me to introduce my Lord Enki, God of Wisdom and Magic." said Hank.

"So, this is the infamous Lord Enki," greeted Ba'al. "You are shorter than I had imagined." which led to several guffaws of laughter around the room.

Harry replied, "and you are just as ugly as I imagined," Lord Ba'al.

Which only got a stupid grin from Ba'al as a reaction. Ba'al just loved taunting people to see how they would react. If he didn't get a suitable reaction, he would try to dig his claws in deeper.

"Enough!" commanded Ra. "Sit, Lord Enki, let us discuss your arrival in the galaxy. Prior to your recent incursions and apparent quick work in dominating a few of the lesser domains, none of has had ever heard of you. I would have you explain yourself before we begin with what I asked you here for today.

"Certainly, my Lord Ra." Harry had to suck up for a little bit until it was time to make his play. "I am the son of Tiamat, who as you know met her demise at the end of the 1st Dynasty. I had been secreted away due to the subterfuge that my mother caused and her rightful ultimate death for her betrayal at the hand of your ashrak Marduk by your order Lord Ra. So, I stayed hidden and made a small place for myself in a far away corner of the galaxy. While I studied and learned and experimented to make advancements in technology, so that I could build a domain for myself one day. I was finally ready to return and take my rightful place among the System Lords, which I have done." answered Harry.

"I see." said Ra. "That does add up then. We were unaware that Tiamat had spawned but that is neither here nor there. You have shown yourself very capable to rise in power as quickly as you have. Yet, my brothers and sisters have come to me with a quarrel against you for the rumored way in which you free your Jaffa from dependence upon Prim'ta. In exchange for granting you official status as a System Lord and a seat at this Council, we will have you cease that blasphemy at once and resume use of the Prim'ta ritual to enslave your Jaffa; and as penance for your having done so I command you to share the secret of your new powerful plasma weapons that our informants have told us about." said Ra.

"I see that you are well informed. I originally took this policy with the Jaffa because I had no queen to spawn new Prim'ta for me to grow my domain. But, I now have both Hathor and Morrigan in my service, so I have no problem reverting that policy." Harry lied.

Before he could continue, Ra interrupted. "This cannot be true. First, Hathor is dead, long ago perished on the Tau'ri home world. And, Morrigan is no real queen, surely you know that she has only adopted the persona of the so-called 'Phantom Queen' for her guile in behaving like one in the former court of Dagda."

Harry was beginning to feel like he had them all lulled into enough of a casual conversation to pull the trigger on his plan. Just another moment.

"Well, I can tell you that the myth of Morrigan having done so is the most successful of her lies. She hid her lineage from the beginning. She is a true queen, has only been waiting for an opportunity to rise high enough that her spawn would rise as rulers in their own right. And as for Hathor, well you see the story with that is that I..." Harry trailed off, while he mentally commanded his 14 invisible HFR's to execute the plan. "Now."

Suddenly, 14 duplicates of Lord Enki's Lo'tar appeared out of nowhere behind each of the System Lords, including Ra, and snapped a slave collar on their necks. While at the same time, their loyal Lo'tar screamed a cacophony of, 'Shol'va,' and other curses and tried to defend their Lord's only to have the faux Lo'tar's with their superior strength disarm literally or figuratively each of the wanna be attackers.

"That I..." Harry continued...

"Want you to all shut up now and bow before me, your new Overlord and Master, Enki, Emperor of the Goa'uld Hegemony."

As the few Lo'tar who had not fully gotten the message that the shit had fully hit the fan continued to squirm in the arms of Harry's HFR warriors.

The 14 System Lords, led by Ra-rose as one and bowed, saying "Your will is our command, master."

"Very good. Let's make this official now shall we, I nominate myself, Lord Enki to become Emperor of all Goa'uld domains, henceforth to be called Overlord Enki, and the empire will be called the Avalon Galactic Empire. The symbol of the empire and my priesthood will be the Caduceus, and all of you will adopt the Caduceus in your domains and merge your priesthoods and governorships under the rule of my Prime Minister Hathor, and your forces under command of my General Mot. Who will second this motion?" asked Harry.

All 14 System Lords rushed to second the motion.

"Excellent, said Harry. Lord Ra, as the current ruler of this Council, if you would please call the vote?" said Harry.

"Of course my Lord." answered Ra.

A minute later, the Council voted unanimously to appoint Enki as Overlord and Emperor, and to follow all other commands. Not that they had any choice, but Harry thought it would be amusing and perhaps even useful in the grand scheme of things to follow proper forms. This way it is on the record for any and all to see, done by their own hand as it were.

"Overlord Enki, this Council has voted unanimously to appoint you Emperor and ruler of all Goa'uld domains. I resign from my post as head of this Council, and we await your further orders, my Lord." said Ra, who managed to make all of this sound like it actually was his idea.

"Excellent. You all have done well."

Harry called to his flagship which his current leadership team occupied.

"Hathor, gather my council and all of you beam aboard this station at once." ordered Harry.

"By your command, master." said Hathor, who was accompanied by Mot and Morrigan.

Lords, you will all remain in service to the Empire as appointed Governor's of your current domains, at my pleasure. Your domains will be assimilated into the Avalon Empire. All of you will report to Hathor for routine governance, as she is my Prime Minister. Your forces will report in a dotted line fashion to yourselves and to Mot, my General. These as well as Morrigan will stay here and work with you, to give you instructions and to assist you with assimilating your domains into the empire. Hathor has final say on any questions or disputes, unless I over-rule her.

Now, to expand the purpose and role of this space station, I am going to leave my flagship in station keeping here and will leave instructions for my personal warriors to being adding onto, upgrading, and augmenting this station to serve as a more comprehensive Galactic Headquarters for the Empire. In turn, each of you governors will station permanent representatives and staff here, along with my stationing of a significant military presence and fleet. The Empire Executive Branch will rule and operate from this station. To this end, I will also soon place several stargates here to make that more convenient, as soon as my people finish the upgrades.

"Lady Hathor, other Lady's and Lord's, I leave you to it. Hathor, report with status weekly. I want to know how this is going. I will return at my convenience when the work has progressed enough for me to move on to grander plans." ordered Harry.

"Yes, my Lord." answered Hathor. The rest of the Lords bowed to Harry as he beamed away back to his flagship.

From there Harry gated back to Atlantis to sit down in his ready room with his thoughts and to update his personal status of the galactic map and the progress of his empire. He would get full assessments from Hathor in the weeks to come, but he knew from his intel. the basic gist of what he just accomplished.

To him, this was the hard part, and it was over. It is certainly not all he planned to do in the galaxy. There are other fish to fry. This was just the Goa'uld, but they were the biggest and most widespread pains in the neck. He would reign in the rest of the malevolent worlds later. Then there would be the Pegasus galaxy to attend to.

Harry's Avalon Empire, now officially controlled all Goa'uld space in the galaxy. He would have them sweep up the rest of any independent none Council aligned Goa'uld that might be lurking about. But the bulk of it is done. He is safe to begin maneuvering more openly now as a power in the galaxy without having to watch his back in well, 14 other directions at the same time.

Today, he added the following major resources to his empire. From Ba'al 6 planets; from Yu 7 planets several with very large populations; from Cronus 9 planets; from Heru'ur 6 planets and 4 more mobile shipyards; from Sokar 6 planets and 1 more shipyard, from Pelops 6 planets; from Ra 16 planets; and then 21 more planets from the combined Nirrti, Apophis, Olukon, Kali, Camulus, Svarog, and Bastet.

All total, now 73 major planets and hundreds more minor ones that just had outposts or were simply controlled but not occupied or utilized yet, some were not even fully explored-they just fell within their controlled space. There are something like 23 or 24 major Goa'uld underlords, governors or specialists he keeps track of and over a hundred other minor underlords or specialists who work for his major underlords. As for forces, beyond what he had already, today he gained another 250 Ha'tak, 124,000 Death Gliders, 26,000 Al'kesh, 500,000 Jaffa warriors, 2,500,000 Jaffa civilian population, plus another 5+ million humans gathered from almost 60 newly assimilated planets.

Less than a month from Harry's 15th birthday and getting ready for his 5th year at Hogwarts, he was now the Emperor of the Avalon Galactic Empire. Not bad. If only his third grade primary school teacher could see him now, and she said he wouldn't amount to anything.

Harry returned to Earth and visited with Hermione to tell her the good news.

"Well Mione, it's done. My scheme worked. They invited me right into their head Council and gave me the opportunity to ensorcel them all in one go."

Hermione ran over to Harry and gave him a great big hug and a peck on the lips.

"Congratulations Harry. That is wonderful. You have liberated the galaxy from the Goa'uld." gushed Hermione.

Ahem. They heard Wendell clearing his throat. "What is all this then?" asked Wendell, as Monica joined him from around the corner.

Hermione and Harry jumped apart and blushed.

"Oh, Daddy, I told you that Harry and I are dating now didn't I?"

"No..., yes. Wait a minute. Honey, did she tell us that?" asked Wendell.

"Well, she told me dear. I don't think I got around to telling you yet." replied Monica.

"Oh, well. Uhm, okay then. Watch where you put your hands there Napoleon." laughed Wendell.

"Daddeee!" exclaimed Hermione.

"So, what is this that I hear, Harry has conquered the universe now?" continued Wendell.

"No sir, just the galaxy, not even the whole, just the majority of it." answered Harry.

"Alright then. But, you need to stop slacking off, if your going to ask for my daughters hand someday you need to be top shelf Emperor, conqueror of the whole galaxy. Not just part of it." continued Wendell, teasing both of them.

"Daddeee! stop it, you're embarrassing me." continued to exclaim Hermione.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha." laughed Wendell out loud. Even Monica joined with a little chuckle.

"It's okay Mione dear, he probably isn't ready to hear about the baby yet then." said Harry cheekily.

"What?!" both parents and Hermione screamed.

"Ha, ha, ha. Gotch-ya." said Harry.

"Oh, you." said Mione as she reached to slap Harry lightly on the arm, Harry evaded and started running. Mione chasing after, right out the front door, around the back, all around the outside of the house, chasing, slapping, grabbing, running, chasing, tickling, laughing.

As the kids ran off to play chase or whatever the heck they were doing, Wendell turned to Monica and said, "He was joking right dear?" Monica just rolled her eyes and went back to making dinner.

...

After dinner they all just sat around and Harry brought them up to speed with some detail. It was obvious he felt like he really had accomplished something now, they could all three tell he seemed to be more relaxed and some weight off his shoulders. He still had plenty more to do, but the most dangerous stuff at least with the Goa'uld is done. He had not elaborated on his other plans yet but they knew he planned to face these other bad people like the Aschen, the Lucian's and then the Wraith and Asurans in the Pegasus galaxy someday.

Wendell and Monica often discussed how difficult and strange it must be for this boy, going from an abused kid of 9 to teenager now about to turn 15; with the knowledge and memories of two adult men in his mind, one a 10,000 year old ascended ancient scientist of the most advanced race in the known universe, and another of an evil wizard. He seemed to be able to go from being a kid to being a scientist to being a dictator from one breath to the other with no difficulty. But to an outsider who had a chance to witness the transition in progress, it was strange to witness. They knew Harry didn't adopt the evil of the wizard, just the knowledge. But still, he clearly learned adult language and mannerisms from both sets of memories that he drew upon whenever he needed to, however he wished to.

They resigned themselves to the likelihood that Hermione would end up paired up with him because that's what it seemed like she wanted. They wouldn't stand in the way of that so long as he didn't turn into evil wizard. So far, while he has been tough and underhanded in his imperial dealings, they believed that his motives were true to long term liberation and benevolence for the enslaved humans out there in the galaxy. They just hoped all the pressure didn't make him snap someday and the Mione manages to stay out of danger.

Harry spent the rest of the summer hanging out with Hermione and even went on vacation with them again. All the while getting his weekly status updates from Hathor regarding the assimilation and stabilization of the entire empire. As it turned out, all he had to do was suggest to her that she have the governors seek out and bring any other unaligned and independent Goa'uld into the empire and they were all to eager to do it. They had always known who they were, but just left them alone as long as they abided by the rules and didn't get in the way of any of the system lords, but it was easy to sweep them up now that it was important to do so.

The job was big, and would take quite a long time. The work they did in previous phases of the campaign set the groundwork, the scale, and the experience for their people to do this. But, now it was just a sheer numbers game. A lot of different worlds and complexity. But, it was all coming together, no problems yet or foreseen.

So it was that Harry made plans to meet with the Tok'ra next year sometime. He made a short visit to Eskal and had Hathor transfer the prisoner Sholred from his flagship which was still at Hasara facilitating the expansion of the station, to Eskal.

Once he arrived, Harry took Sholred into a private conference room and explained why he held him and what he now needed him to do. Nothing more than he was going to do anyway, except it had to be at the right time and the time is now. An he also needed him to deliver a specific message to the Tok'ra Council.

He explained his real identity as an Alteran, or as they called them the Ancients or Gate Builders, and the work he did to conquer the Goa'uld collective in order to liberate the enslaved humans and genetically engineered Jaffa sub-genus of humans. He did not reveal his Earth or wizard background, nor that he used slave collars to make quick work of deposing them and ensuring their obedience. That secret would also come out, but also at the proper moment. He explained that he wants to meet with them sometime early next year, to discuss some proposals he has for them and to enlist their assistance in the solution for the final status of the Goa'uld. He let it be known that he supported the Tok'ra and their way of life as opposed to the Goa'uld, so they had nothing to fear from him. He would explain more at the meeting. He gave him a sub-space communicator that can reach him anywhere in the galaxy and sent him on his way to whatever planet he wanted to go to, to gate to the Tok'ra home world.

Then he returned home to Hermione to enjoy the rest of the summer and prepare for next year at Hogwarts and while all that was going on in the galaxy...

Back at the Avalon Alliance on Earth...

During the third year of the Avalon Alliance, they began launching and assembling their big shipyard in space, in geosynchronous orbit over Baker Island in the Pacific.

Baker Island is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean about 3,090 km (1,920 mi) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island, 42 mi (68 km) to the north-northwest; both have been territories of the United States since 1857.

This tiny unassuming island became the primary Earth station for launch of their rockets into space because of its equatorial location making it most efficient for the task, it's long held ownership by the US, lack of native population, and general remoteness. The island was not a particularly good harbor for large vessels either until the Alliance maritime engineers sculpted large sections of the reef out and dredged it... now it was beginning to look like a minor naval base, with structures being built on the island for that purpose.

The non-allied powers of the world began to take notice but this operation didn't violate any treaties anyone was aware of so their was nothing to be said for it officially. Nevertheless Russia, China, N. Korea, et al. began concerted efforts to aim their intelligence apparatus at finding out what was going on - and now they knew it was really some kind of secret space program when the island kept firing rocket after rocket into space, rendezvousing with a mysterious 4th space shuttle that no one knew about before that seemed to remain in space for months at a time, intercepting cargo from these rockets and assembling some kind of space station in very high orbit out of accident range of any earth satellite systems.

Russia and China formed a small joint intelligence operation focused on studying this mysterious alliance. They knew from the class and flag of naval vessels that went in and out of Baker Island seemingly non stop which 9 countries were actively participating in this and they didn't like it one bit. - They expanded their intel. ops with focus into each of those nine powers using their deep cover apparatus and from that they learned this Alliance called itself the Avalon alliance and their program's unclassified name was also Avalon, and the conclusion was that they are working on building some kind of space ship, in orbit. They just didn't know why. But they knew it could be dangerous for them.

With the amount of nuclear power this ship will have available to it, the designers were able to conceive of solutions for safer space travel that they didn't think feasible before with the old ideas of having to build something on the surface and with all it's weight and mass, achieve escape velocity to launch it.

Without those limitations they designed very high powered omni-directional spread spectrum EM emitters that would form a protective magnetosphere shield around the ship protecting it and it's occupants from cosmic rays and other exotic particles in space. This would become Earths first recognized native designed energy shield. It wouldn't stop directed weapons fire from a focused particle beam, but it would prove an effective first effort suitable to its purpose.

Knowing that what they faced out there came with real military threats which is why they were doing this, the Alliance adapted their most advanced experimental terrestrial high powered land based laser designs that tended to be the size of semi trucks into this ship design, because weight and mass wouldn't be a launch issue and they will have far more power than any mobile land based system they ever built.

The first model, a 13.4 KW gamma laser cannon was taken directly from the existing land based designs. They hope to scale it up to much more powerful cannons since they will have much more raw power available however, they will still need more advanced capacitors and emitter diodes capable of handling more power without destroying the cannon itself. They will see how these perform in space on their first prototype ship first and go from there.

For this first go, they designed the hull a little like the old Iowa class battleship, with three large turrets each with three of these gamma laser cannons, like the Iowa's big guns, except the emitters looked like giant bass drums not giant rifle barrels. For the ships main primary long range weapon given the power and scale they had available to work with they designed a high powered magnetic rail cannon the length of the ship, that will fire a 7 pound shell at Mach 7 or 2.4 km/sec. The ordinance consisted of two variants, a hardened spent plutonium tipped tungsten load for conventional fire and a thermonuclear tipped shell that would only arm itself once it got 1 km beyond the ship for the ships own safety. Either mode could reload and re-fire once every 2 seconds, for 30 rounds per minute of continuous fire.

The design of the ship aimed to eliminate reliance on rapidly expended fossil fuels thus the reliance on nuclear powered electricity. However this wasn't practical for all applications. Since this is first prototype is an explorer craft and test platform, the ship was given a sizable shuttle bay, fit to hold 3 standard shuttles, it would only commission with two, with room and spare parts and tools sufficient to build a third on site if needed. The idea really was to keep their complement of two in good working order and enough machine tools to make an honest effort of it without support from Earth for extended periods as necessary. These would of course rely upon their standard fossil fuel sources, therefore large supply holds were built to store some of this as well as small drilling and refining equipment which could be used to manufacture new fuel in the field as it were if they could find the raw materials. They do plan to design a new Thorium Salt reactor shuttle in the future, but they don't want to hold up the launch of this prototype to design and test those prior to this. So, they will just re-deploy two standard space shuttles.

The ship was given the Earths finest communications capabilities and radar computer and tacking tech., even a rudimentary but limited voice interactive AI that could help the crew obtain ship status, perform basic commands and perform shipboard logistical functions. Part of the design for this prototype is to eliminate as much human error in operation of it as possible.

The first mission is to perform full flight tests, including testing the experimental ECR engines and weapon systems. Fly to the moon and place a permanent thorium reactor powered communications and radar listening outpost along with 4 linked satellites that will monitor the entire moon and the space around it 24x7. That is a warm up, then for the final test of the maiden voyage a trip to Mars and back, an estimated 3+ month round trip, where full social research will be conducted with logs of crew living and operating on this trip. They will spend 1 month in orbit of Mars performing deep scan research with radar, sonar, magnetic anomaly detection, and all other advanced deep scan research that Earth is currently capable of. As with the moon, they will leave 4 satellites in orbit linked to a Mars thorium reactor powered communications and radar listening outpost. The entire shake down and test flight for this prototype ship is estimated at four months from launch from the shipyard until it returns. Except for the rigors of space, a wet navy ship would be lucky to have a cruise that short. So all in all they consider this feasible. As long as everything works to plan.

The Alliance was ready and launched their prototype on its shakedown cruise on September 1, 1995. The ship, dubbed the AES CC-101 Enterprise. (Avalon Earth Ship, Cruiser) was commanded by Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force, Advanced Technology Program. His XO was Major Charles Kowalski, and Science Officer Captain Samantha Carter was third in command. The rest of the military support consisted of two small 6-person special operations teams that doubled as ships security and two 6-person bridge crews to man various command consoles, such as navigation, communications, weapons, etc. O'Neill, Kowalski, and Carter would take turns at 8 hour shifts as Officer of the Deck. The rest of the crew were 100 civilian support from medical to cooks and supply personnel to scientists and engineers from all the Alliance member countries, including one Doctor Rodney McKay from Canada. For a total crew complement of 127 souls. In command of the Baker Island Earth Station and Ground Control was General George Hammond. The base also had a small alliance Naval fleet detachment in addition to their small air wing, in case certain foreign powers got too nosy.

Harry had just returned to school with Hermione, starting their 5th year. This might've been the first year he actually showed up on the first day, so he was enjoying the sorting feast when the Destiny AI contacted him via his neural interface and let him know that the Earth Avalon Alliance appeared to finally be launching their ship. As they were tracking the AES Enterprise slowly leaving it's space dock.

Harry of course knew all about their ships mission plans and design capability. He was quite interested to see how it all turns out. He knew the whole plan was going to take them four months. But he planned to keep an eye out for them in case they needed any help in an emergency. This is one reason he secreted over to the Enterprise one day last week and planted a high-powered yet otherwise undetectable (by them) sub-space transponder on their hull, so he could keep track of them.

After dinner, he told Hermione what was going on with the Enterprise. Until now he had not shared too much of what he knew of the Earth space program because he didn't want to be the source of any leaks on their behalf. But, now he gave Mione a little more detail and she made him promise to keep her up to date on how its going.

One day the following week he excused himself from Hogwarts (again). He decided to reward their efforts with an Easter egg, if they can find it. If they successfully transit to Mars and can get to and from the surface the way they plan, then they will have proven themselves capable of the next step in his book. So, he stripped the old Osiris Tel'tak of its hyper-drive and buried it underground in one of Mars less interesting looking craters, very near to one of the locations he new they were planning on landing and working.

He left a message written in Alteran that said... "Congratulations, you've accomplished much with just a little information and a gentle nudge. This old low tech shuttle from one of the medium tech races in the galaxy that was left abandoned 10,000 years ago ought to be decent research material for you. I've removed this ships interstellar flight capability (hyper-drive) so don't bother looking for one. But, the computers for hyper-drive navigation are still there and functional. I've even updated the star-maps on it for you, just so you don't start off driving in the wrong direction if you ever to decide to try to use those maps for anything." wrote Harry.

"If you ever want us to help you with interstellar flight you are going to have to bring the rest of your world powers into your alliance, share, and go public with your knowledge of the galaxy and your space technology. If you wish to join us in the larger galaxy we will welcome you in peace and justice if you come justly and in peace." concluded Harry. /Signed, Emperor Enki, Avalon Galactic Empire, Supreme Commander of the Avalon Galactic Fleet./

A/N:

-I know that the real Hasara space station only had seating for 8 lords at one time, and only could dock nothing larger than a Tel'tak. I upgraded its capability a bit to fit my plot.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It's been a while. Where were we? Oh yeah.

Harry and Hermione have entered their fifth year and the Earth Avalon Alliance just launched the CC-101 Enterprise on its 4 month maiden journey and shakedown cruise.

Harry and Hermione's 72 member 'Club Potter' (Slughorn eat your heart out or use it for potions ingredients, either way), beginning with this year the club will only recruit from year 4 and above, and will recruit just enough to backfill the Potter 50. Each year a class graduates they will handpick 2 from the top 10 or if necessary from the 50 to replace the top 2, then the remaining 2+10 will elect from the 50 to backfill the 10, then the remainder of the 50 will recruit as many more as needed to re-fill the 50. Of course the year Harry graduates they will have to replace the entire top 12, but they will try to stagger their selections of represented years going forward so there is better continuity in the future. This group will pass down the elite training in wandless magic and advanced mind arts that Harry originated within the group, as well as the advanced group study of the Hogwarts and other wizarding world curriculum. Each year, all of those who graduate out of this group will be invited to immigrate to Atlantis to become elite professionals in the Avalon Galactic Empire, including the far more advanced training that entails. The latter part, this open invitation to graduates, will remain a ward protected secret of the group in the hope this underlying purpose won't become a future cause to ban the club.

Harry made a point to spend most of his time at Hogwarts this year, but also spent one week per month away on Empire business. Thus he organized most of his Empire work around that schedule. He began letting Sirius a little more into his life since he had behaved himself and not been overbearing about getting involved in his life, giving him time and space, as Harry asked. He began to share some details of his problems with Dumbledore and some others and explained he only let Dumbledore in the know insofar as it had been useful to Harry. But, he doesn't trust him or like him.

In September he visited Atlantis to begin preparations for the final stage of his empire building. He remodeled a good portion of one pier to provide secure docking for a variety of diplomatic vessels, guest quarters, entertainment and food halls, and most importantly an elaborate convention hall for his future guests adjoining yet securely separated from very special "guest" quarters that he would be needing for his coup de grace. On the way back he secretly looked in on the Enterprise to see how they were doing and they seemed to be having a good shakedown cruise. They were just finishing up at the Moon, and Harry was impressed by their efficiency and what they accomplished by setting up their first moon base. It also gave him another satellite network direct back door hack into their primary space operations, but he wouldn't mention that.

In October he visited Atlantis to inspect the completion of the work on the pier and then put finishing touches to his plans to have built an HFR replacement for every single one of the hosted Goa'uld in the empire from Hathor to Ra and every underlord in between. Almost 200 were to be created (187 to be exact). On the way back he once again checked in on the Enterprise and they were just about to arrive in orbit of Mars. It didn't appear to him that they had any trouble so far, they were about on schedule.

In November he visited Atlantis to inspect the completion of all the HFR replacements and spent a few minutes personally inspecting and testing each one if them, which was tiring. But he had come too far to make lazy little mistakes now. With that completed he kicked off an AI program he made just for the purpose of, about 10 per day, summoning each of the original Goa'uld directly to the stargate on the secure pier of Atlantis, over the course of the next month. As soon as a scheduled Goa'uld arrived it was stunned, beamed into a stasis chamber, its recent memories since its original copy was made was downloaded and uploaded to its HFR duplicate, then frozen in stasis. In this way all hosted Goa'uld were rounded up and replaced by HFR duplicates by December. Harry thought that if these creatures weren't evil themselves and if it weren't for the greater good of the human race, one might have to say he is becoming quite the evil genius himself. He stopped and looked in on the Enterprise while they were orbiting Mars and working on their month of research there. It appeared they did indeed find the salvaged Tel'tak he planted there for them and were busy retrieving it to take back to Earth. He chuckled when he remembered the note he left them.

When his AI informed him that the Goa'uld capture and swap program was complete, Harry moved Atlantis to the orbit of Eskal and sent out an invitation to the Tok'ra, the Asgard, the Nox, and the Tollan ... informing them of the return of the Alterans to the galaxy, their subsequent liberation of the galaxy from the Goa'uld over the past few years, and the formation of their new benevolent galactic empire. He asked the Tok'ra to come prepared to take custody of and deliver justice to the Goa'uld and for the Asgard, Nox, and Tollan to send representatives to come bear witness, at their pleasure-the meeting to be held on December 27th at Atlantis, which is presently in orbit of the planet Eskal, the current Capitol of the Empire.

During the Christmas holidays Harry asked the Grangers if they'd like to come bear witness to the big event, and likewise invited as many of the Club Potter kids that could get away without revealing the secrets to their parents. As for adults on his side, he invited Sirius to come along to see the results of exactly what he has been up to. Sirius asked if he could invite Remus along as well, and Harry agreed on the notion that the remainder of his parents closest friends should see what their son had accomplished.

Remus tried to suggest "why not Albus as well" which drew an icy glare from Harry, to which Sirius waved Remus off and whispered to him "Not a good idea, I'll explain to you more later. And you can see now why he doesn't let you in close to what he's doing."

...

Attending the big meeting with Harry from Earth, helping also to show a larger contingent of the Avalon Empire's Alteran benefactors, included: Harry of course, all three Grangers, Sirius, Remus, four of the top ten from Club Potter: Neville, Terry, Dean, and Seamus; and sixteen of the group of fifty from Club Potter: George, Fred, and Ginny Weasley, Lee, Jimmy, Luna, Ernie, and nine others. Altogether 26, including Harry. Plus all of Harry's HFR duplicates, mainly to make an appearance and demonstrate the point; ample amount of Atlantis HFR security personnel and hard-light medical holograms which may be needed for portions of it. Harry gave all his Earth friends a mix of Alteran military and professional uniforms to wear for the occasion, to look the part for Harry's background. And Harry himself wore the sharp threads of the Alteran High Councilor and Supreme Commander.

Harry and his contingent arrived the day after Christmas to get ready for their guests. He gave them a quick tour of Atlantis and a bit more detailed tour of what tomorrow was expected to bring. Now that they could see for themselves and were 'in the know' of exactly how he was doing all this, some of his friends almost wet themselves with giddy excitement with how awesome all of this truly was. Teenagers, what can you expect? At one point he had to tell his friends, "Get a grip people."

The big day came, December 27th, and a contingent from the Asgard arrived, including Thor, Heimdall, and Hermiod; a contingent of Nox arrived, including Lya, Anteaus, and Ohper. A contingent of Tollan arrived, including Omoc, Narim, and Travell. And finally, a large contingent of Tok'ra led by Garshow of Belote, Lantash, Anise, and a dozen other on hand to assist with the 'Goa'uld' prisoners.

The first hour was taken just by making greetings and Harry welcomed everyone to Atlantis and thanking them for coming. Many of the alien races were also meeting some of the others for the first time as well, or for the first time in a long time being re-acquainted, or to finally put a face to a name. There was a lot of murmuring and sidebar conversations happening.

In order to get things moving along, Harry took the podium and asked everyone to be seated. He said "After I am done with my presentation and several other tasks, I will welcome a representative of each race to take the podium and say a few words if they wish to. I understand that this is the first time many of the leaders of these different races have seen each other in a long time, or in some cases perhaps for the first time. So, it would be an incomplete service to not provide that opportunity while we are all gathered here today. So, again before I get started let me welcome you all to Atlantis."

He paused and there was cheering from certain groups. The Asgard made little golf-claps to accompany the Alterans in the audience, the Nox sat there stoically with bemused expressions like they usually do but nodded respectfully to Harry in acknowledgment, the Tollan clapped reservedly in respect, and the Tok'ra seemed to cheer as ardently as the Alterans.

Then Harry began by explaining how he is the leader of a small remnant of Alterans who recently took up the legacy of their ancestors and decided to leave their isolation and return to the stars. How when he looked into the status of the Avalon galaxy was appalled at the state of things because of the Goa'uld and undertook a several year mission to subdue them and root them out with as little violence as possible, by impersonating one of them and taking them over from within using guile and some amoral tactics, which he hopes to never have to resort to again. He explained that he did things this way in order to proceed with "the greatest of caution and the compassion for life," with a nod to the Nox, as they were known for that saying in galactic affairs.

He explained how impersonating a Goa'uld named Enki, he managed to work his way into power within their hierarchy and to become proclaimed Emperor of the Goa'uld by reversing the Goa'uld's game upon them.

"Upon meeting each one of them, I placed a piece of advanced technology on their person which enslaved them to my will, as they had enslaved the host to their will. By doing this I was for the most part able to usurp their authority and continuing to use their face for a short period of time, re-organizing the Goa'uld collective into a benevolent hegemony. Absorbing their forces and their domains into my empire, without having to do battle at all, in most cases. Thus, preserving life." said Harry.

"I only undertook this tactic with the intent that it would only be for as short a time as possible and as of earlier this month, I have concluded a program of temporarily replacing all of the previous Goa'uld lords and underlords with HFR duplicates that answer to me. Thus, I have captured and gathered all of the Goa'uld and have removed them from power in the galaxy. I have been in the process of uplifting the lives of the human civilizations that I've liberated as well as beginning to teach them self-governance. I plan as next steps to make these reforms permanent and all-encompassing now that the Goa'uld are completely out of influence here."

"Now, without further ado, allow me to present to you all 187 major Goa'uld lords, underlords, and specialists that I have captured, everyone from Ra to Setesh." said Harry

Then Harry waved his hand and a holographic wall that was previously behind him between the stage and the special 'guest' quarters behind him, disappeared revealing 187 stasis tubes with said Goa'uld within them. Standing next to each one was the HFR duplicate, to illustrate and bring home the point of the announcement he made earlier about them.

"Garshaw of Belote, Grand Councilor of the Tok'ra, would you be so kind as for you and your fellow Tok'ra to come up to the stage and make ready to take custody of these Goa'uld? As we discussed in our exchanged memoranda prior to this it is our belief that as these are of your species, that you should have final say in how justice is to be meted out to them. So long as we do not find them wandering freely in any of our protected space again."

He paused for them to join him. As they arrived on stage, Harry gestured to the stasis pods and they all opened, with all their occupants out of stasis but still stunned. Then he waved his hand and conjured a large metal box on the floor next to him. Then with another wave of his hand, 187 collars lit up briefly, disengaged from their hosts and flew over nearly as one, somehow magically not colliding with one another on the way, and neatly deposited themselves in the box.

"There you are Grand Councilor Garshaw, these prisoners are all still stunned. How would you like to proceed from here?" asked Harry.

"High Councilor, we would simply keep them stunned and transport them all back to our Homeworld. But, as we mentioned prior to our arrival we do not have a transport large enough to carry all of them at once." answered Grand Councilor Garshaw.

"That isn't a problem. We took that under advisement and we plan to gift you one of our captured Ha'tak mother-ships. You can transport them with that. It is my understanding that you do not possess one of these of your own at this time. So, you may keep it as a sign of our good will and thanks for this assistance. It is a standard Ha'tak complete with full wings of Al'kesh and Gliders. We loaded it up for you." replied Harry.

"Thank you High Councilor. The gift is very thoughtful and very welcome indeed. With that, as you say our transportation problem is resolved. So, then if you could just help us move these 187 to the ship, you've done most of the job for us." said Grand Councilor Garshaw.

"That is fine. I anticipated as much." said Harry, as he motioned and all 187 stasis pods closed back up and beamed away to the Tok'ra Ha'tak.

"So, if I may ask Grand Councilor, for the benefit of all here, especially the leaders of the other races here assembled who have had difficulty with the Goa'uld in the past, can you please explain what your plans are for them?" asked Harry, as he backed away from the podium, motioning for Garshaw to take it and respond.

"Yes, thank you High Councilor. First let me on the behalf of all Tok'ra and I daresay in behalf of everyone else in the galaxy, thank the Alterans and High Councilor Potter for conquering the Goa'uld for us and freeing the galaxy from their taint." began Garshaw.

There was a brief pause for more applause.

"Our plan once we get them back to our Homeworld, is that we will extract the Goa'uld symbiote from the host. For many hosts this will mean instant death because they are so old and have been resuscitated too many times with the use of a healing sarcophagus. For a few we anticipate that the host may live and in those cases, we will return them to you for their healing and care." continued Grand Councilor Garshaw.

"The symbiotes themselves will have their memories copied so that our species do not lose their scientific and technological knowledge, then each one of them will be destroyed, for they are deemed incorrigible and unredeemable. This is our form of capital punishment, and the only way we feel we can ensure that they cannot return to the galaxy someday to start over with their madness." concluded Grand Councilor Garshaw.

Re-taking the podium, Harry said: "Thank you Grand Councilor, that is a good solution from our perspective. These are members of your species that is why we felt it is most justified for you to determine the punishment. It is possible that other's in the room may disagree with capital punishment on the whole but we ask that everyone respect the Tok'ra sovereignty in this issue."

"Grand Councilor I have another gift for you." said Harry, as a large tank with an apparent Queen was rolled forward toward the stage.

"We discovered the existence of your Tok'ra Queen, Egeria, on one of the world's we liberated and carefully took her into our custody so that we could return her to you. She was weak but she has recuperated much of her strength and we believe that with her returned to your civilization, that your race might grow again." announced Harry.

The normally stoic Tok'ra almost as one gasped with astonishment.

"Oh my. This is the best news ever, High Councilor. Are you sure you are not secretly Tok'ra? You have answered all of our prayers in one day!" Grand Councilor Garshaw reached over to shake Harry's hand as she knew it was their custom and said: "We can never repay you. Thank you very much for freeing and restoring my people." concluded Grand Councilor Garshaw.

Harry just shook her hand in response and modestly simply said. "You are welcome. Just keep the Goa'uld scourge from returning. We are very glad we could help."

Then the Tok'ra left the stage and returned to their seats to the sound of more applause.

"With that excitement, let's all take a little break and come back in 30 minutes to continue. During the break I will try to find out from any of our other guests if anyone else would like to have a few words before we close the official part of the conference for today." announced Harry.

...

The conference reconvened and before turning the podium over to the other leaders to speak, Harry announced that the expanded space station at Hasara is now a diplomatic and free trade station open to all races to visit and participate in diplomacy and conduct commerce with the Avalon Empire and each other, under the protection of the Alterans. Each race is invited to open and maintain a diplomatic and trade office there if they so wish. He also announced with the blessing of Grand Councilor Garshaw that all Tok'ra or any other of their species must be registered at Hasara and cleared for travel before visiting any Avalon Empire planets, to ensure that no other hidden Goa'uld slip back into Empire space and attempt to start their campaign of forcing hosts, causing terror, and engaging in slavery all over again.

Then the leaders of each of the other races that were represented took the podium briefly to say a few words. Each expressed their happiness that the Alterans have returned and their thanks that they dealt with the Goa'uld problem. The only ones to hint at any moral questions over their tactics and the Tok'ra final solution was the Nox. But, that is how the Nox always are. Nevertheless they were happy for a foreseeable era of peace and prosperity for the human populations of the galaxy. The Asgard asked to have some follow-up bilateral meetings to discuss some mutual interests and concerns.

The Tok'ra and Asgard agreed to open and maintain an office and presence at Hasara to begin open trade with the humans of the galaxy. The Tollan declined to open an office but said they will visit from time to time to conduct diplomacy and trade and to sample the Alterans hospitality. The Nox declined but simply said they are open to trade with all peaceful races and if anyone should need them feel free to contact them.

After that the official conference broke up and the attendees spent a little time mingling and discussing a few bilateral issues with each other, possibly already making separate diplomatic contacts and entree's to trade talks. Harry's friends, while dressed as Alterans tried to avoid anything but small-talk because even with the bits they knew all of this was still rather awe inspiring and out of their league. They knew that part of their presence there just helped Harry with the appearance of numbers. It wouldn't be helpful really at this stage of the development of these intra-galactic relationships for everyone to know that officially Harry is still the only one of his kind 'out there' right now, although most of them knew that wouldn't last much longer because they were determined to join him as soon as they could.

Everyone left happy and in peace, some making new friends; and the Tok'ra leaving with a boat load literally of prisoners as well as their new boat and the return of their Queen. The day just couldn't have been any better for them. Well, maybe a fleet of Ha'tak but, really right now all of the Tok'ra could live and deploy on one Ha'tak with ease.

After returning to Hogwarts Harry verified that the Enterprise made it home safely, and resumed his routine. During his visit to Atlantis in February, he decreed an organization change to the Empire. Each planet will thereafter be governed by an executive council of three, one Governor for the labor class, one Cardinal for the religious class, and one General for the military class. The Cardinal and General will be appointed from the office of the Emperor and the Governor will be elected by majority vote of the citizens of each planet. These three will simultaneously represent their planet in their respective positions on a newly formed Imperial Grand Council, divided into three castes as described, each meeting regularly as necessary via group hologram and reporting respectively to an Imperial Prime Minister, Grand Cardinal, and Grand Admiral of his appointment; and to serve as an advisory council to Him, His ministers and his Imperial Court as requested.

As such, all of the current faux "Goa'uld" governors and lords would be recalled to the Emperors court (where they wont be seen again...in that form). These would be re-morphed to new images and personalities, maintaining the memories of their original duplicates so they continue to know where the local bones are buried. Then they would be returned to each planet to serve as imperial Generals, accompanied by newly trained human Cardinals from Eskal, formerly of the Enki priesthood who would begin an era of phasing in freedom of religion and more tolerance, and a gentle turning away over time from the worship of false gods and shallow militaristic ideologies by losing any dependence or forced reverence to them. These would begin to re-form the planetary governments and prepare the citizenry for nominations, campaigns, and elections for their planetary Governor, and relevant subordinate equivalents for municipal governments as necessary, one year later.

With this Empire re-organization kicked off, the only other major project he embarked on that was empire wide for the remainder of the year was to recall all Ha'tak and respective Al'kesh and Death Gliders to give them all one generation of upgrades. They would still pale next to Alteran designed and built ships but they would be more formidable than any former Goa'uld enemies could account for, thus making reuse of all the existing platforms feasible while adding a significant level of surprise to any would be enemy's who presumed what those ships were capable of.

All Ha'tak were upgraded to neutrino-ion reactors similar to what the Asgard use since the wasted space in the pyramid complex was ideal for that, with Alteran shields that were now up to the level of Asgard shields with that amount of power, more advanced sensors, communications, and transporters, and all plasma staff cannons were upgraded to equivalent power. The troop space that could handle 2,000 Jaffa before were redesigned to more comfortably support 500 humans, with a shade more dignity than Jaffa slaves were afforded. All ships were deployed with nanite-repair bots, and all controls were revised from Goa'uld to human interface with an new central computer core, linked with AI back to central command. Rogue elements would not be stealing these ships and making off with them to form their own power bases (wanna be Lucian's and traditionalist-militaristic Jaffa who refuse to reform, we are looking at you). Using all the shipyards through-out the empire and a very efficient program management AI, this would get done right around the same time as the first empire wide planetary elections.

After these refits to extend the useful life of the existing platforms are done, he decreed that no more Goa'uld designs would be newly built and that he would send designs for upgrades to all shipyards, and for Destiny Mk II class battleships to become the new standard build, which they would begin building in modest numbers the following year; then over time gradually mothball the Ha'tak fleet in favor of the all Alteran design.

The rest of the year Harry spent focusing on Hermione, dating, and their friends, and taking their owls because Hermione didn't have all the knowledge preloaded into her head like he did. Feeling like things were on a plan now and would take care of themselves.

During the summer, Hermione and her parents along with Sirius and with Remus in tow again, left to take a tour of the galaxy with Harry. They traveled aboard the Destiny because Harry left his former flagship as the protector and support of Hasara, and the other remained the same for the Capitol on Eskal.

Harry abandoned the old look of a Goa'uld or Sumerian Enki... to finish putting to rest the visual reminder of the false gods. Instead, and at Hermione's urging with input from all the adults present, synthesized a proper human wardrobe fitting the image of an Emperor, thankfully more muggle than magical. They didn't need a pre-Victorian dressed Emperor either. Although he retained the pseudonym Enki for necessary continuity, he officially changed his name and signature to, Harold Enki James Potter, Emperor of Avalon. In this way people from different backgrounds could learn to accept both first names used alternatively for him in practice in different circumstances.

Meanwhile, back at the Avalon Alliance back on Earth and in orbit aboard their prototype starship the CC-101 Enterprise, they were finishing plans to first upgrade in place the Enterprise systems using new sub-light engines, new scanners and sensors, sub-space communications, light shielding, anti-gravity engines for atmospheric flight, and light plasma weapons, based on synthesized crystal tech reverse engineered from the salvaged Tel'tak.

Their biggest problem was lack of naquadah for a power source, but they worked on back-fitting their own power sources to this technology. This would have to do for the next generation until they can get out there in deeper space and find some of the exotic resources they will need to advance further. So, they continued to use Thorium Salt Reactor's. Fortunately enough of them would adequately power sub-light engines. So that their new design would allow interplanetary travel much faster than their original design. And with the knowledge their scientists were gaining from reverse engineering this technology, their understanding of the theoretical science behind these advancements were improving to the point that they believed they would now begin to be able to innovate on these technologies in future generations.

In the meantime, these advancements led to the Avalon Alliance deploying some of these same technologies to their terrestrial defense needs. In particular they designed their first new air and space superiority interceptor/bomber with anti-grav and sub-light engines, shields, advanced targeting systems, communications, and plasma cannons. The trick for this new aircraft was that to power these systems they still needed the output of a nuclear reactor. So, they dusted off the old Navy NR-1 Nerwin reactor design and footprint, but severely enhanced it with modern and alien technology to manage the cooling which is always the trick, and the weight and so forth.

In truth, these aircraft could be more aptly termed a combat shuttle craft considering how big they really were and were crewed by four personnel, pilot, co-pilot and two reactor engineers. This endeavor was so expensive they only planned to build ten initially. One operational prototype for testing, one for training and reserve, and eight to deploy as the air wing to their newly designed Prometheus class light carrier they will build based on the all new technology from the ground up. The Prometheus will have two hanger decks to support the eight aircraft. Fortunately now with anti-grav technology they can build and launch this from the surface, so the design and construction can be more elaborate, with more of the bells and whistles they wanted that came out of the lessons learned from the Enterprise's maiden voyage. This project was being hidden and built at the USA's old Area 51 complex.

They knew that to get to the next level, inter-stellar travel, they will need hyper-space flight or figure out some other kind of Faster-Than-Light travel. The good news was that with this salvaged ships navigation computer they had obtained some amount of theoretical and practical knowledge of hyper-space, and of course sub-space from the other systems. They knew that even the alien technology could not power hyper-space drives without the exotic particle naquadah, but they were heartened by the fact that they were now developing theoretical knowledge of hyper-space and beginning to get into a position to theorize on hyper-space travel designs. So, they were positive they could get there someday. It was within their reach now.

On the other hand, owing to the success of the Enterprise's shakedown cruise and too many excited loud mouths in the program. Apparently an English translation of the secret message left by Harry on the salvaged Tel'tak made it through some e-mail filters and into the hands of Russian and Chinese espionage. Thus, began a lot of public outcry from them which accomplished several things. One, they put their findings as well as their observations of the past couple years into the public domain because the members of the Avalon Alliance officially stonewalled them behind closed doors.

This led to public media investigations into the secret program. And frankly after the initial buzz calmed down, most of the ordinary citizens when they put aside for the moment what it cost them and their economy over the past several years for this secret program to be funded, were also kind of awestruck by what their country and the alliance had done. So, after a while talk of shutting it down eased and a number of politicians stopped sweating as much over their jobs, but there was still the matter of the other major powers insisting they be included in this, being allowed to participate as equal partners with equal share of the technology. Of course this included complaints about how the alliance's sequestering of this technology would upset the global balance of power in the first place, something they would otherwise have to react to in some way to ensure their own security. Not to mention the public outing of what Enki told them, which thanks to espionage has told the world-paraphrasing, don't expect help with hyper-space technology from us unless you are united and the whole world is represented (point), and if you come to the stars, come justly and in peace if you want to be met with justice and in peace (point). In other words, it's the right thing to do all around. This led to many debates over the next year, while they were secretly building the Prometheus program. That much had been successfully kept secret, but they knew that once that cat got out of the bag, the international uproar would be endless, so the Avalon Alliance slowly began to work in roles for the Russians, the Chinese, and several other countries. They would not acknowledge North Korea individually, but if China continued to want to represent them as part of their sphere of influence then let them participate that way. They were not going to let state actors of terrorism into the organization. Ultimately the powers agreed and the Earth Avalon Alliance was expanded to include all members of the UN Security Council as well as many of the other large countries, to the point where one could say truly the vast majority of all the world powers were represented.

At that point, the almost finished construction of the Prometheus program was unveiled to the greater alliance and the world. It was no longer a secret endeavor among nations or the people. And most people the world over were now behind this amazing achievement for all humankind. Somehow, around this global space program, world unity was starting to take seed in the hearts of ordinary people around the world. Would it take root and grow?


	10. Chapter 10

A little bit of rare and possibly expected fluffy teenage angst resolved Alteran style and a mean ass Harry at the end.

Chapter 10

The beginning of Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts was somewhat uneventful for him personally. That did not mean things weren't going on. All of his ongoing changes within the Empire were a little past the half way point for the current objectives, so that was going smoothly. The Earth Avalon Alliance, which had been renamed simply the Earth Alliance, was stabilizing itself and making decent progress on their Prometheus project. One American Senator, Kinsey was found shot to death with 47 bullet holes. Someone really wanted to silence that bastards dissent. Oh, well. Problem solved.

There had been some political disturbances on Javabli because they were far and away the most populous human world in the empire with over 3 billion citizens, whereas the 71 other major populated planets had barely 10 million between them. With the Capitol world of Eskal numbering only 250,000. Therefore, many were lobbying that the Capitol of the Empire and the home of Atlantis should be moved to Javabli, as it represented the true heart of the empire.

Harry thought they had a good point and went on the Galaxy News Network (GNN) to announce that he was considering it and would most likely announce his decision after the successful galaxy wide elections in six months.

Where did the GNN come from do you ask? Well, ever since the liberation from the Goa'uld became public knowledge with the announcement of upcoming elections, as well as inter-planetary free trade. The more technologically advanced planets began launching commercial satellite television and communication networks, and markets began opening up for public access to news and entertainment systems in their homes. The Avalon era of the couch potato had begun. One by one planets within the Empire were coming online.

Another aspect of freer or safer space travel for civilians and an opening economy is that entrepreneurs from a variety of planets in the Empire had begun conducting licensed private exploration and development of some of the hundreds of other known habitable planets within the empire that had not been thoroughly explored or exploited before. The Empire began selling old Al'kesh with heavy weapons and cloaks removed (and secret nano-tech tracking transponders added) to entrepreneur's and other civilians who wanted to convert them to commercial vessels for exploration or light cargo hauling, etc. Thus small settlements had already begun popping up on dozens of other Empire worlds, and a space-faring merchant class was beginning to develop.

In one such exploration, one of the entrepreneurs reported to the Imperial military that one of his expeditions failed to make contact or return, with three small explorer ships presumed lost. So, the Grand Admiral dispatched a unit of three Ha'tak to investigate the situation. What they discovered was one more independent Goa'uld who claimed to be Anubis, apparently in the process of building several large shipyards. The scanners indicated ten thousand Jaffa and the one Goa'uld with unusual or intermittent life signs, no completed Ha'tak but hundreds of Al'kesh and Death Gliders and large stockpiles of refined ore.

Whoever this was they were in the beginning stages of developing a force to someday begin a military conquest. But fortunately the Empire discovered them before they could make much progress. Based on standard ROE they beamed away the planets stargate and placed the planet under blockade so that no ship could launch and enter hyperspace. Intelligence indicated that Anubis had been banished millennia ago, but never recorded as killed so, they presumed this was really him.

The Grand Admiral arrived in force with a fleet of thirty Ha'tak and began an assault on the planet, committing the forces of twenty of his Ha'tak, while the other ten remained in reserve and helped to enforce the blockade. The Jaffa forces quickly surrendered to such overwhelming force and the Empires' ground assault teams managed to storm Anubis' palace unabated. As the troops approached Anubis, believing themselves about to take him captive, he turned to face them in his black flowing robes with nothing but darkness where his head and eyes should've been. Then to make his escape he let the personal force field generator fall that gave his energy form the appearance of substance on the material plane, and with a mad cackling laughter said in an eerily echoing voice that the galaxy had not seen the last of Anubis and that he would return to rule the all someday. Then his empty robe and force field generator fell to the floor and he whisked away in a glowing cloud of white and disappeared.

All present gaped and exclaimed "what was that?"

Following that, a few days later as Harry reviewed the visual recording of the report, he mumbled to himself, "egad, what was that?" and then Harry fumbled to his waste instinctively looking for a special gun he invented a long time ago for certain special occasions, then remembering it is always with him in his expansion pocket.

This year also marked the first year that Harry had some graduates from Club Potter who wanted to follow him to the stars. So, Fred and George Weasley, along with their girlfriends Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and their best friend Lee Jordan, moved to Atlantis and became the first to begin using a special training lab with simulators that Harry had designed to train his new witches and wizards on the use of Alteran technology as well as the history and state of the galaxy and the empire. They would spend a year in such training, beginning to specialize half way through for whichever professions they wanted to enter into.

To facilitate the movement of his people to and from Atlantis and Earth, Harry purchased an unplottable spot of land adjacent to Hogsmeade and had a small building erected and protected by Fidelius that contained little more than a secure bidirectional stargate from Earth to Atlantis. In this way his people could come and go as they please.

The year seemed to fly by and Harry had more time to spend at Hogwarts with Hermione than the previous years.

Another side effect of spending more time at Hogwarts was more people seeing him around socially, which led to certain teenage girls who couldn't keep their eyes off Harry even knowing he was spoken for, circling closer and closer like cats sniffing a can of tuna.

At one point during the year, one very enterprising Club member named Romilda Vane just brazenly came up to him and kissed him and asked if he would like to go out with her to Hogsmeade. He just stuttered for a moment and after getting his composure said, "huh, what... no... I'm going with Hermione," and just stormed off. Hermione witnessed the entire exchange from the other side if the room but said nothing.

Not wishing to be outdone nor last in line should Harry's resistance actually crack, Ginny who had become friends with Hermione over the years had a private conversation and broached the subject of their future plans, someday. Had they made any? Hermione said they had not made any official plans yet but they love each other and she hopes that Harry will ask her to marry him someday.

Ginny said. "Hmm, that is good. But, I was wondering if you and Harry ever considered the possibility of a harem?"

Hermione made to snap off a reply, but Ginny held her hand up and said, "wait... let me explain."

Hermione seemed to pause so Ginny continued.

"Well, I was thinking that with Harry being Emperor and all, as well as the only true pureblooded Alteran now, that it might be worthwhile for Harry to father as many children as possible, beginning any number of new family lines that could increase the chances for the more advanced genetics of the Alterans which only Harry possesses now to spread farther in future generations. Rather than just limit that potential of just one line, and Merlin forbid if for some reason you can't have children. Do you see what I'm getting at?" concluded Ginny.

Hermione pondered for a moment and said. "Hmm. You are smooth Gin, I'll give you that. And sadly you may have a point. But that only really matters if Harry agrees with you." she exclaimed with a sigh. "But, I will broach the matter with him as I am sure the matter has never even occurred to him. It may be important to him so I will ask." concluded Hermione, as she got up in a huff and quickly left, muttering under her breath, "the nerve of some people."

...

Hermione wasn't going to sleep very well until she got that conversation with Ginny off her chest with Harry to see how he reacts to it. "Damn that Ginny and all." she said to herself as she made her way in the middle of the night to Harry's secret hideout where he sleeps away from the rabble of the dorms.

After she woke Harry up and explained what she was doing there. No, it wasn't a booty call, maybe next time. He immediately defended against the thing with Romilda and said he's sorry, it wasn't his fault, he swore. She said, she knows she saw the whole thing, this is more important so hush. And she repeated what Ginny had said to her, then waited for Harry's reaction.

She got worried when Harry appeared deep in thought for a few moments. Then when she couldn't take it anymore smacked him on the arm and said, "Haarrryy."

"Oh, sorry Mione. I was just thinking, and no it wasn't about all the girls that are apparently lining up to shag me." said Harry.

"Okay, so first no, I don't want a harem love, I just want you. And as long as you will have me that is the way its going to be." continued Harry.

Hermione interrupted Harry by jumping on him and snogging him senseless. Then she said, "but? I sense a but in there?"

"Well, she raised an interesting point. One that I have an even more elegant answer to. But, it is good she raised the issue." answered Harry.

"She wouldn't know it, any more than the rest of you, but Alteran medical science has a very advanced way of solving this problem. I wouldn't force this on anyone of course, but for anyone who volunteers for it, male and female... There is a procedure that can be performed before any woman's first pregnancy and at any time for a male, that will-to make an extremely long story short, modify ones reproductive DNA (that is eggs or sperm) to that of full Alteran and removing all known genetic defects, while retaining the unique aspects of the parents traits that are not affected by the Alteran upgrades. This does not change your own physiology to full Alteran, but any offspring you have will have the new DNA. For men this is one simple and quick outpatient procedure and its done. For women, its a series of twelve not as fast outpatient procedures over the course of a year. I won't even explain what's happening there, I'll let you read it yourself." said Harry.

"That is a good solution, it handles the entire population at once and doesn't require little Harry to become dirty Harry. But, why is it always that these things are harder on women than on men?" said Hermione.

"Well sweetie, I'm no doctor but I'm going to assume that it is because you women are just more complicated across the board. And did you just crack a dirty joke about my stuff?" replied Harry, in a fake huff.

Then they both descended into laughter and 'went to sleep'.

So, Harry comm'd the five novum Alteran up at Atlantis and asked them to attend the next Club meeting at Hogwarts wherein he explained the concern one member of the club raised to him and the proper solution for it, strictly voluntary of course. Many of the girls just sighed as apparently Ginny's solution had been on the minds of a number of girls. Ginny kept her reaction reigned in because she knew Harry was doing her a favor by not mentioning who suggested it, saving her the embarrassment. She also had to admit, his was a good solution and she would be signing up to make sure her kids someday have the best life has to offer.

At the end of February the Empire's elections occurred successfully and there was now a proper elected human Governor of each planet along with elected municipal governments, to accompany his appointed human Cardinals, and his appointed HFR Generals. Harry went on GNN to announce the success of the results and to announce that he decided to move the Capitol Atlantis to the orbit of Javabli. Eskal will remain a leading technology and industrial planet dedicated to the functioning and support of the military, and serve as galactic fleet headquarters. The high priesthood would return its headquarters and training facilities to the surface of Javabli where it originated.

Additionally, Harry took stock of his major military assets since the completion of the Ha'tak upgrade program. In addition to Atlantis and Destiny, the fleet consisted of his two custom super mother-ships that serve as base HQ at Eskal and Hasara, and 309 Ha'tak and their full air wings of Al'kesh and Gliders, and a standing active military of 1,000,000; 200,000 of which were dedicated to Fleet Operations, and the rest to planetary security and ready response. With another 1,000,000 trained inactive reservists. There were 3 Ha'tak (considered a single unit) home-ported at each of the 72 protected planets, with the remaining 93 either in home-port at Eskal, on other missions, or on patrols throughout the galaxy, or other various ports of call such as Hasara.

With that done he issued orders for Fleet HQ to start mass producing and then deploying his self-healing planetary satellite defense grid to each of the primary protected planets and outposts.

After that was in place he planned to take a fleet in force to visit the Aschen and have a little discussion about the dark information about them he received from the leaders of the 'Pack' whom the Empire recently assimilated, which his own intelligence had recently confirmed. But not until the summer. He would let things stabilize a bit and make a push for deeper intelligence on them. While he likewise began to consider what if anything he should do in the Pegasus galaxy.

Their sixth year ended with little fanfare. You would think it was just an ordinary kid going home after another year at boarding school, if it weren't for the fact that he turned around, apparated to his secret stargate and went home to Atlantis half-way across the galaxy.

Meanwhile, back at the Earth Alliance. They launched the Prometheus, which for all its new bells and whistles was still just a system-ship, not made for inter-stellar travel. They gave the command to Col. Jack O'Neill, with now Maj. Carter promoted to XO. Lt. Col. Kowalski was given command of the Enterprise, which was relegated more to a test and training platform now, as well as performing some logistical duties that are necessary to maintain the Moon and Mars from time to time. The BC-101 Prometheus became the new flagship, but it was decided not to begin mass producing these until they could achieve hyper-space. There would be no worthwhile ROI as far as the bean counters were concerned.

In any case, the Prometheus was built for much more comfortable life in space, had double the size crew and had a wider range of weapons and shield capabilities, much faster sub-light engines, as well as onboard hangers and laboratories for other missions. So, the Prometheus was sent on an exploratory mission of the rest of the solar system. And they deployed additional four-satellite networks to each of the other planets. Meanwhile they made very detailed maps of the system and all the planets and attempted to explore, hoping they might find more alien goodies laying around. Plus they ran many theoretical experiments and fine tuned the practical applications of their new ship platform; and performed many tests and trials of their new X-302 Combat Shuttles. (The X-301 project which was a planned Thorium power upgrade to the old US Space Shuttle model was scrapped in favor of the latest tech.)

The most difficult part so far was getting the eclectic crew consisting of all the original alliance members plus some Russians and Chinese who were assimilated into the program, all working together under one command and playing from the same rule book. This would be another part of the experiment that they would learn lessons from on this voyage. Which is why this deployment included a small diplomatic attachment led by Ambassador Elizabeth Weir who specialized in just that sort of problem, namely getting egos from disparate cultures and governments working together. Fortunately, the food was much better on this new ship as well, and they also had a small common entertainment area where they could watch movies and so forth.

...

During the summer Hermione accompanied Harry, along with Fred, George, Angelina, Alicia, and Lee who were now permanent fixtures on Atlantis-for a mission to Aschen Prime to 'meet' the Aschen and confront them about their use of biogenic weapons to conquer other worlds by sterilizing them.

Harry briefed his 'command crew' (and he thought it was cool that he really finally had a living breathing one of friends he liked and trusted and that wasn't comprised of machines or his enemies). This was another one of the life goals he set for himself when he decided to return to Earth and attend Hogwarts for his childhood. Things were sort of working out.

"The Aschen currently hold five planets, Aschen Prime, and four planets they have allegedly conquered through this method of genocidal expansion I told you about and turned into farming planets. They have some inter-stellar space ships but, do not explore outside of their small confederation. Their weapons, shields, and numbers are no match for the Empire but, we are going in force to ensure they know we mean business and that we have the means to conduct the business, and also so that we can blockade all five planets simultaneously when I speak with them. The ultimate conclusion of this discussion might be the beginning of war, so I won't sugarcoat it. You've all seen the background on these people. They will either accept quarantine the easy way, the hard way, or find themselves conquered and assimilated. That is assuming that we can find any among them to be redeemable. We shall see." said Harry.

"You know. I'd like to be able to say we would be going in there to liberate the people they conquered but there are none. They murdered them all with their biogenic weapons. The more I think about what these people have done and what they live to do, the less I want to talk to them and the more I just want to crack their planets in half. But, I am advised to at least begin level headed and to show 'some' restraint, so I will try. But, I can't promise they won't push me too far, because I suspect they might." concluded Harry.

"That's okay. I am of two minds about this as well. I hate killing for any reason, it just seems so awful. But these people, don't seem like people at all. They act like fire ants just shaped like humans. I wouldn't have any problem with you exterminating a nest of fire ants. So, you do what you have to do." said Hermione.

"George, Fred, Angie, Alicia, Lee, are you all comfortable with this or do any of you want to sit this out?" asked Harry.

Fred answered for the group when he said: "Nah, we're good with it Harry. I mean I think we are all glad we don't have to make these kinds of decisions. But, we want to learn. I think we all can just think of these people like a whole planet full of Voldemort's and it is easier to understand."

"Alright then, we will embark on the Destiny as our flagship, and we will be flanked by both of my custom super-mother ships, just in case for some reason we do need any backup. Along with us will be ninety upgraded Ha'tak. Ten each will go to their four farming worlds to blockade them, while the other fifty will accompany us as the main fleet, under command of the Grand Admiral, to blockade Aschen Prime." said Harry.

"The operation is set to leave space-dock from Eskal tomorrow morning 10am. So, let's get a good night sleep and come back tomorrow ready to kick butt." concluded Harry.

...

The next day the fleet arrived at the Aschen Confederation, with their arrival timed perfectly such that all five planets came under blockade simultaneously.

Immediately upon arrival Harry used his over-rides to lock down all of the Aschen Confederation's stargates.

Within moments, dozens of smaller Aschen warships were heading toward their main fleet and hailing the intruders.

"Attention unknown vessels. You have entered Aschen Confederation space, too close to one of our protected planets. Please increase your distance to one standard light-year and state your intentions." stated the emotionless voice from the approaching ships.

"Aschen Confederation, I am Emperor Enki of the Avalon Galactic Empire. We are the Alterans, the ones you call the ancients or gate-builders, who have returned to this galaxy to restore peace and order." began Harry.

"I have come to address your leaders to discuss a matter of grave importance. It has come to our attention that your civilization has engaged in genocidal war crimes in your expansion. We have disabled all stargate travel to and from your planets and sent fleets in addition to the one you see before you to blockade all of the planets of your confederation. We will discuss the terms of your surrender and your permanent cessation of these genocidal practices." continued Harry.

"You have one standard hour to have your leaders in front of me explaining why we should leave you in peace." concluded Harry.

...

Ten minutes later, Harry's three command capital ships and fifty Ha'tak mother-ships were being surrounded by twice as many if not significantly smaller Aschen warships. Harry assumed there were some warships on their way if not already preparing to encounter his smaller fleets at the other four planets.

"Grand Admiral, what is the status of all five fleets and what opposes them?" asked Harry.

The Grand Admiral gestured to the holographic war room table and said: "Here sir, you can see the Aschen are attempting to surround us with just over a hundred of their smaller warships. And over here, at each of the other four planets, they have only been able to meet our squadrons with an equal number of warships, about ten each. Apparently they did not have as many ships deployed to their smaller planets, as we expected. The other four planets defenses pose no threat to our ships at all, they can just sit there and take fire and not respond and successfully thwart any attack by those forces without doing anything." said the Grand Admiral.

"And frankly, their one hundred ships here will be no match for us either. I mean we might need to take about four shots in total to destroy their current numbers, without taking any casualties. So, essentially we will have to raise our voice. But, I doubt we will get so much as a sore throat from it." concluded the Grand Admiral.

"I like your combat metaphors Grand Admiral. Thank you. Well, I guess we'll just wait out the hour and see if they respond to us. If they open fire before that time, immediately engage as planned and as you said, four-shot their fleet and bring them to their knees." ordered Harry.

"Harry, I don't understand why would our fleet need to use four shots to take out these smaller ships even with their version of shields?" asked Fred.

"Well because we will not deploy any air wings and we won't use our drones. Just our primary plasma beam weapons. The resources frankly aren't needed and in any operation that size mistakes can happen and friendly's can get hurt by accident. As for drones, we try to save them for when they are truly needed more or less so as not to show off or give our enemies out there ideas about the kind of weapons they ought to be developing." answered Harry.

"Oh, okay. That makes sense then." replied Fred.

For the next ten minutes the opposing ships just maintained station keeping. After about a half hour into the time limit a hologram appeared on the command deck of the Destiny, with three Aschen leaders appearing, one standing in front of the others readying to speak was clearly the leader.

"Hello Emperor Enki, Greetings from the Aschen people. My name is Councilor Mollem, I will speak for the people today." said Mollem.

"We are sorry that we are meeting for the first time under these circumstances. Clearly there has been some misunderstanding. In all of our travels, which have been few, we have only ever offered the people we've met, peace and help by sharing our technology and science. It is unfortunate that in these circumstances the people we tried to help misused our knowledge and harmed themselves. Therefore we have since sworn to no longer freely offer our assistance to other worlds and do not actively explore the galaxy." concluded Mollem.

"I see." replied Harry. "Our informants and our own investigation indicate otherwise. We met 'the Pack' when we conquered the entirety of the Goa'uld collective and freed the galaxy from them. They told us quite a different story about you, your past conquests, and your recent attempts to bring them into your fold. They are by the way now free, upstanding citizens in our galactic Empire with a new planet of their own to call home." said Harry.

"Next, we stationed cloaked social research satellites around all five of your planets as well as sent investigators in secret to your planets and conducted our own investigations into these allegations and we were able to independently confirm them, especially with a great deal of physical evidence on Volia. My people weep for the poor Volian that you murdered to steal their planet, as well as the others. We will not let this continue." continued Harry.

"Here are our terms. We will remove all of your stargates, which by the way belong to us in the first place. Secondly, we will maintain constant watch over all five of your planets and track your inter-stellar travel by continuously monitoring hyper-space and sub-space in your sector, erstwhile maintaining heavy patrols in your confederation space to ensure you remain in your sector. Finally, you will not be permitted to travel or engage in diplomatic communications or trade with any other race or species in the galaxy without it being supervised and mediated by the Empire. If you accept this, we will go in peace except for the enforcement I mentioned. If you do not accept this, you will be forced to accept a more violent version of the same consequences." concluded Harry.

"Who are you to demand such things?" said Mollen, still expressing no emotion, as is one of the defects of their race.

"Yes, I understand your race is ancient, but what gives you the right to dictate terms by force to all the other races in the galaxy?" said Mollen, evenly.

"It's very simple Councilor. I am Emperor of the vast majority of the known galaxy and we are a benevolent empire. We consist of hundreds of worlds spanning over 80% of the territory in the galaxy and we serve peace and freedom. We've freed all the other human races of the galaxy from the Goa'uld and other oppression, and we will be damned if we let you continue to prey on others. Who were we to free the rest of the galaxy from the Goa'uld?" answered Harry.

"I will answer you in the way that most matters to you judging by your own behavior in such matters. Might makes right does it not? Well then, you and your world and your tiny primitive little warships are just gnats, and we are the inter-galactic supremely advanced in every way, fly-swatter. I would try to reason with you but everything I have learned about your race indicates that you apparently lack the capacity for reason. I don't know how a branch of the human family evolved into you despicable things, but the rest of us, especially me, are disgusted that you even exist. What I am doing is offering you a chance to live and possibly over however many eons it might take you, to change and become good galactic neighbors and maybe just maybe someday this quarantine could be lifted and you could find out what it is like to make friends with other humans without feeling the insatiable need to murder every one you meet." said Harry.

Harry exhaled loudly and sighed.

"If you do not want this chance to live and redeem yourselves someday, then choose to fight and this problem for us will be resolved far sooner. But unlike you, we think it is a shame to needlessly waste life. Thereby, you have your chance. Take it or leave it. You have one more hour to decide. Enki -out-!" Harry abruptly concluded.

...

One hour passed by and the Aschen leaders did not re-appear with an answer.

And their fleet of ships stayed where they were and appeared to be doing nothing.

"Grand Admiral, what is going on?" asked Harry.

"Nothing. Just nothing, sir." replied the Grand Admiral.

Harry scratched his head and stretched his neck left then right than back to the left, letting out a little creaking sound-and started tapping his fingers on the console of his command chair.

Five minutes later.

"Grand Admiral, have I miscounted the time or has one hour passed since I gave them that ultimatum?" asked Harry.

"No sir, you are right, it has now been one hour and six minutes since you terminated your last transmission to them." replied the Grand Admiral.

"Alright then, let's get their attention. I knew we were dealing with lunatics here but god help us. Target their lead ship and have one Ha'tak hit it one time with it's primary plasma beam weapon." ordered Harry.

"Aye, sir." replied the Grand Admiral. "Firing now."

Everyone watched as one powerful beam of highly concentrated blue energy lanced out from one of their lead Ha'tak and struck the lead Aschen warship. The ships shields flickered harshly then fell.

"Sir, the Aschen warship's shields have been destroyed. One more hit will destroy the ship." said the Grand Admiral.

"Good, let's see if that clarifies our intention and sufficiently demonstrated a bit of our power to them, and let's see if they can do simple math as well as they can engineer bioweapons." said Harry.

"Sweetie, there is no reason to be snarky to the Admiral. It's not his fault." said Hermione.

"I know hon, but the assholes I want to talk to won't pick up the phone." replied Harry.

Suddenly, a hologram of the three councilors re-appeared on the command deck, and Harry privately thought, 'finally, getting somewhere.'

This time, the one he spoke to before, Mollen, was standing behind one of the others that had stood behind him before. Harry just shook his head and wondered, 'what now?'

"Hello Emperor Enki, Greetings from the Aschen people. My name is Councilor Borren, I will speak for the people today." said Borren.

Harry could be seen rubbing his head and eyes, then lifted his head and said:

"Have you all made a decision yet?" asked Harry.

"About what sir?" replied Borren.

Harry just began tapping his fingers on the console again.

"Grand Admiral, do you know which ship those leaders are transmitting their hologram from? This guy is Borren me." asked Harry, in full hearing of said leaders.

"No sir. That is to say, they are not transmitting from a ship, they are transmitting from what I imagine they believe is a shielded, secure bunker on the surface." answered the Grand Admiral.

"Very well." Harry replied, the corner of one eye twitching. "Grand Admiral, target the location of their transmission and fire one drone... one drone only." ordered Harry.

"Target locked, firing." said the Grand Admiral.

Seconds later the transmission stopped and the Grand Admiral reported that the target was destroyed, and the buildings next to it. And the buildings next to them as well. And then there was some collateral damage beyond that; and there is a 100 meter hole where all that used to be.

"Ah, well. Thank god, open up a frequency to those ships and the same command frequency those idiots were just transmitting from for me to speak to them all live." ordered Harry.

"Circuit is up, sir." said the Grand Admiral.

"Attention, Aschen. Your leaders were given an ultimate and terms of surrender, and a time limit. They chose not to answer at all. Therefore you have not accepted the terms in the time I gave you and also did not even so much as request more time, simply chose not to respond at all. Therefore, the answer is made for you. We are now in a state of war. Let whatever demonic entity that you worship have mercy on your souls, assuming you have one." said Harry.

"Grand Admiral. Open fire, fire at will at all military targets at all five planets." ordered Harry.

"Opening fire. Fire at will. Orders confirmed. Weapons red, weapons free. All units engage at will." ordered the Grand Admiral.

Within about four minutes all Aschen warships were destroyed in all five theaters. The Aschen returned fire, to no avail. The Empire took no casualties. The ones at the remote planets just maintained their blockade, while thirty of the fifty Ha'tak launched all air wings, to descend into the atmosphere of the planet and targeted with naquadah enhanced bombs all of the military-industrial complexes and assets, especially shipyards. The thirty Ha'tak took up equidistant positions around the globe at low orbit and destroyed all of the Aschen satellites, and lowered themselves into low orbit such that they were easily seen from the ground, to inspire shock and awe.

"Grand Admiral. Leave this fleet of thirty here and the other forty at the four remote planets to maintain the quarantine on these people. When you are finished with the surface campaign to destroy their military assets, recall your forces and beam up all their stargates and keep them in storage. Just maintain small CAP from each Ha'tak to maintain air superiority and then just watch and monitor them." said Harry.

"If they have not contacted you in one week to discuss surrender or to request aid, or anything. I will send a diplomatic team to join you and begin work on ensuring they know the new rules they will be living under for some time, enforcing their compliance to the terms, and we will go from there. Until further notice, the Aschen Confederation is under quarantine. The only exceptions are if another member of the old Great Races Alliance wishes to visit them, that is the Asgard, or the Nox. Otherwise, no one goes in or out." concluded Harry.

"Yes, sir." answered the Grand Admiral, and they terminated their holographic transmission from the fleet.

"Okay, folks, let's go home and let the fleet do their work." said Harry, and he sent the remaining twenty Ha'tak back to Eskal, along with their HQ mother-ship, the other back to Hasara, and returned with his friends aboard Destiny back to Atlantis.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Harry and Hermione's seventh and final year of Hogwarts began and as Harry predicted, the Aschen did not surrender or even ask for aid. Yet, the Empire's surveillance and spies confirmed the steady degradation of their lifestyles. They were unable to resume moving agricultural goods from their four farming planets, global communications was severely disrupted, and on Aschen Prime they were restricted to surface and low altitude flight up to 40,000 feet; above 50,000 feet and they were shot down. Harry sent a diplomatic team inserted behind a large ground assault team which successfully took over a medium sized island off the coast of their largest continent and Capitol. With that foothold they were acclimating to being an occupying force, trying to make routine contact with the government, and with full and direct local access to their government's records, putting together an implementation plan for Harry's strategy to assimilate and re-educate the Aschen who may be redeemable, especially their children.

Soon after that, Harry dispatched teams of representatives consisting of experienced Governor's and Cardinal's in lieu of a full diplomatic corps which the Empire still lacked, to each of the remaining un-aligned worlds that he had not spoken to yet [A/N 1, 2]-to inform them of the political changes in the galaxy, the return of his people, the vanquishing of the Goa'uld, etc. and offered them peaceful trade relations and an exchange of ambassadors with an office at the Hasara space station to conduct diplomacy with the other races and membership in the Galactic Trade Alliance. For certain other cases the missions found a variety of special circumstances for which he ordered other solutions.

For the Unity, the Empire took them under their protection as an endangered species and restricted travel to their world and deployed appropriate assistance to help them begin to recover. They found the Talthun refugee sleepers in space and took them to their destination Homeworld Ardena and helped them get started rebuilding their civilization. Discovered and visited the Altairan underground survived by Harlan, who refused assistance believing he needed to continue his original mission to maintain the facility without interference. This despite the fact that every other member of his race had died or left long ago. A team discovered the A't'trr Orb that had been in stasis on their dying planet for 100 millennia. The Empire then found them a new unclaimed planet without a stargate and set them free on that world to restart their civilization.

During this initiative, Teal'c, a relatively new Governor of Chulak, himself once a former Prime of Apophis, contacted the Prime Minister to request a meeting with the Emperor for a meeting he wanted to broker with the Ilempiri of Atropos. Harry agreed and they held the meeting via hologram in order to expedite it.

"Greetings, Emperor Enki. My name is Teal'c, recently elected Governor of Chulak, and this is Bra'tac, recently appointed Cardinal of Chulak. Thank you for agreeing to this meeting on such short notice, my Lord." said Teal'c.

Harry, nodded to Teal'c and to Bra'tac and said: "You're very welcome Governor Teal'c. And you can dispense with this 'Lord' business, just 'sir' would be fine when addressing me in conversation. I understand you have something of a mission of mercy for us?" asked Harry.

"Yes, ...sir." Teal'c replied, trying out the new less aggrandized epithet for the first time. "Please allow me to introduce Aris Boch." Aris stood to be recognized and bowed to the Emperor.

"Aris is a member of a race called the Ilempiri who reside on the planet Atropos. After the fall of the Goa'uld I realized that his race would need some help soon, so I reached out to him to see how they were doing. I should let him explain though." concluded Teal'c.

"Thank you Teal'c. Well met Mr. Boch. Please be seated and tell me what is on your mind, how can we help you?" asked Harry.

"Sir, my people while appearing human are really a bit different from normal humans. Our physiology made us immune to Goa'uld possession or to be used to carry Prim'ta. So, the false gods enslaved us another way. They poisoned us with a drug called roshna, which they made us addicted to with them being our only source. Without it, we will die and we are quickly running out now. My friend Teal'c suggested that the Empire might have the means to cure us of this dependency altogether. I have come representing my people and we would gladly join your Empire and offer our services as advanced warriors in exchange in your forces if you could do this for us." said Aris Boch.

"Mr. Boch, I would be very surprised if we couldn't help you. We will be glad to help you and I will make arrangements after this meeting for Governor Teal'c to liaison for you with our Capitol City Atlantis at Javabli to get working on that right away. Also, we will of course welcome your people and your planet Atropos into the Empire. As for your service, we will welcome any of your people to serve the Empire in any way you wish, including as advanced warriors. We do have an elite special forces that you might fit right into. However, I will also say that in the Empire, individuals are free to choose whichever occupation they want. If you wish to do something besides military, that is fine with us too. You don't owe us anything in exchange for this cure. Just that if you join the Empire, that you live as good citizens and good neighbors with the rest of the species and worlds within the Empire." replied Harry.

"Thank you Emperor. This is great news. I will take this word to our people and work with Governor Teal'c to get the process started." said Aris, bowing once again.

Then Harry stood and said. "Very well, good luck. Governor, I will send a communiqué shortly to make the arrangements. Thank you for bringing this directly to my attention. It speaks well of you that you would recognize a need such as this and act on it. I believe you will go far in the Empire." said Harry, as he ended the transmission with a head nod indicating approval and dismissal.

For the Unas, the Goa'uld Homeworld, and K'kaa, the Empire removed the stargate from the world for everyone's protection and left a satellite network to monitor the primitive Goa'uld who lived in the wild there which apparently have no particular agenda, just an instinct to seek hosts. These had no naquadah in their bloodstream. Considered to be the origin of the sub-genus that once upon a time took to the stars to become the Goa'uld and then their sub-genus the Tok'ra. The planet would be preserved but restricted. Harry sent a communiqué to the Tok'ra, offering them these worlds to be in their care since they are related to the native species and that also as such he would hold them accountable for any future malevolent wanderings of the species.

And finally, he dealt with the problem children of Lucia. He ordered Lucia and their little Alliance annexed into the Empire, they were allowed to retain their three Ha'tak, but were allowed only semi-autonomous rule for their past crimes. Namely smuggling, in particular the kassa drug, which Harry declared banned throughout the Empire. This naturally created tensions with the Lucian's, but they knew better than to resist the decision. Harry was trying to reform them into a more gentle merchant class, for as such they could play an important role for the Empire. But, he would only allow them so much rope. He knew that no one was perfect or lived like angels all the time, but they needed to 'get better' to fit in. Harry was giving them their chance, he sincerely hoped they took it.

Erstwhile, Fred and George had specialized their training in science and inventions, upgrading their love for doing the same with magic to high science, to help Harry finish designs for the Empire's planned trans-galactic wormhole network that he was in the process of inventing. Angelina and Alicia decided to go into Administration and Diplomacy respectively, and would accompany their fiancés Fred and George when they deploy on the real work of that project at Bastion soon, and then following that to deep space for the construction of their first hub in a year or so. Lee Jordan went into Diplomacy and he was the one being groomed to be the Empire's ambassador to Earth. Therefore Harry had several meetings with him and the other human and HFR staff that he assigned him to prepare for the mission to Earth.

Whilst the fleet worked on the Aschen mission, and Lee prepared to become an Ambassador, Hermione was getting busier with her role as Head Girl, opposite of Justin Finch-Fletchley who made Head Boy. If Harry was in the running or not he didn't care, he was just as glad not to be. It was obvious to everyone that Hogwarts was not his priority. Instead Harry continued to spend a lot of time up in orbit on Destiny holding or attending holographic meeting after meeting with his various councils and other advisors planning a large number of initiatives that would become his full-time work after graduating, not to mention tuning up and attending to the routines of the Empire.

In addition to the war with the Aschen, several other big items were on his plate and he was starting to sketch out a schedule to get everything done that he wanted, such as number 1) marry Hermione, 2) follow-up with the Asgard, 3) take his big plans for Earth to the next level, 4) prepare to re-engage in Pegasus, 5) put his big inter-galactic expansion idea onto paper get it started, 6) and kick-off the major fleet upgrade plan.

Thus, being Harry's first priority-during Christmas, Harry asked Hermione to marry him. She accepted and they set a date for July 31, 1998, his 18th birthday. They decided to have two ceremonies, one on Earth with their friends and families, and a later one on Javabli for the Empire, wherein she will also be crowned as Empress. She knew that was part of the package but when Harry actually said it she still almost fainted.

Then, Harry took a short absence from Hogwarts to travel to the Asgard home-world Othala in the Ida galaxy to follow-up on their request to meet. The Asgard wished to renew the old alliance and they discussed many things of mutual importance. The Asgard asked and Harry agreed to assimilate the Asgard's seven protected planets of the Avalon galaxy [A/N 3] into the Empire, for the Alterans to continue to protect and nurture them since they are all within their sphere of influence now and the Goa'uld threat is gone. Harry agreed and Thor would work with him over the next year as schedules allowed to take Harry personally to each world to make the introductions or other arrangements as appropriate. They briefed him on their clone degeneration problems and their war with the Replicator's. Harry extracted a copy of all the Alteran knowledge on Replicator's including the designs of their weapons effective against them, as well as all their knowledge on cloning and DNA regeneration. An ecstatic Asgard pledged their undying support and mutual defense, even after he informed them of his inter-galactic expansion plans. They agreed to go in on it with the Empire as partners, which made Harry quite happy as well. He and the Asgard were certain that with the information he gifted them from the Alteran knowledge repository that both of their big problems would be resolved soon. The Alterans gained a loyal partner for eternity with the help he gave them.

In February, the BC-101 Prometheus returned from its long voyage exploring and marking their territory all over the Sol system. Harry secretly attended and observed their debriefing meetings with Earth Alliance HQ and thereafter sent them a message congratulating them and asking to set a diplomatic meeting between their governments so that the Empire could make them an offer that would include hyper-space travel. The Alliance was very happy to hear from Emperor Enki again especially given the topic and accepted, setting a date in March.

In early March, Harry ordered the upgraded shipyards at Eskal, Magtireth, and Soma-kesh to begin mass producing Destiny Mk II battleships to begin replacing Ha'tak in the field and placing the Ha'tak in reserve on the surface of Eskal. The one shipyard at Delmak was kept in reserve to provide routine maintenance and support of the Ha'tak fleet while it was being decommissioned. They would produce 12 new Destiny Mk II per month, with the first 100 going to prepare and train for Pegasus, then the rest to begin replacing the Ha'tak at the protected planets and finally filling out the reserve. With the number of protected planets now inching up to 100 soon to be many more than that, Harry decided to have 700 new battleships built. The entire program would take almost five years to complete. Not only did he need to replenish the deployed units for 300 ships, he needed to prepare scale to go into Pegasus, as well as what he would need in his other inter-galactic expansion plans. For that, he commissioned the building of five more orbital shipyards around Bastion, which is where he would manage the expansion campaign from. Four would specialize in building his new Voyager class inter-galactic explorer ships and its relevant probes and satellites. While the fifth is a highly customized design of Harry's to build the new experimental trans-galactic hub, interspatial manifolds, and trans-galactic sub-space apertures that Fred and George were helping him finalize the designs and test plans for. The plan is that when it is ready to go, Fred and George will supervise it's installation and ongoing management from the hub complex, which itself will be a fairly significant space-station.

In addition to that, since the Destiny Mk II class only had room for 64 crew and passengers. Harry re-assigned his old flagship that was now redundant at Hasara to the newly forming Pegasus fleet to be fully upgraded up to the Lantean specification, to serve as his personal flagship during the campaign. The old pyramid tower and external scaffolding which were previously just for show was removed and replaced with smooth concave sides of tri-hull armor to expand living quarters and provide space for other labs and weapon systems. The ship was also upgraded to a three ZPM power plant. It would have all the power and force of Atlantis, just without all the residential space. The ship looked like a 5,100 meter diameter cliché flying saucer (19 square kilometers at its base, which looked kind of like the city-destroyer's in Independence Day but only about 1/5 of their size). And now, in addition to its 6000 HFR crew and infantry force, had room to comfortably support 1,000 human passengers, possessed considerable molecular matter construction capability, possessed 16 upgraded puddle jumpers, and could support the fleet with maintenance, repair, medical, re-supply, and other support. He wanted to be able to handle a variety of missions, surprises, or even some amount of refugees or prisoners-depending on what they encountered in Pegasus. While he was at it he scheduled it's sister ship, the mother-ship that served as Fleet HQ on Eskal, for the same upgrade. Since he went about upgrading these to full spec. and extended their useful life as fully modern multi-mission capable forward command platforms and fleet support, he finally decided to give each one a real name. He called these the ACS-101 Eskal Class Command Ship where the Grand Admiral was stationed, with his personal flagship being called the ACS-102 Javabli.

Then he had his meeting with the Earth Alliance. He introduced Ambassador Lee Jordan and gave them a high-level introduction to his goals and an update on the affairs of the galaxy, then turned it over to Ambassador Jordan to put forth the detail of the Empire's proposal. Ambassador Elizabeth Weir represented Earth in the discussions. While the ambassadors sat down to discuss details, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Earth Alliance (retired UK Prime Minister) and General Hammond and their retinue escorted Harry and his four bodyguards on a tour of first their facilities on Baker Island, then the BC-101 Prometheus. They were grateful for his help so far and wanted to show off how far they had come with it. They also sat him down for a briefing of a summary of their Enterprise and Prometheus missions in the Sol system. He pretended not to know most of it already so they could boost their self-confidence and continue to presume they had some capacity to keep secrets from him.

The ambassadors had some give and take. Mostly the Empire just had to give one more thing they weren't expecting going into it, but understood why Earth asked once all their information was dumped onto them. Earth had great pent-up expectations of being explorers and pioneers, which they still can be. But they had just not foreseen so much of the known galaxy having been explored or at least mapped and over 80% of it and that being most of the good places already spoken for as someone else's territory. They are well past believing, but in their hearts still are working on acceptance that they are not alone in the galaxy, and that even amongst humans they are not among the first to explore the stars, nor the most advanced. Harry hoped these realizations alone would temper the egos and ambitions of the more militaristic and earth-centric leaders.

The Empire asked for really one big thing, with a couple details. They wanted permanent Allodial Title and Sovereignty of about 500,000 square miles of land and sea centered on the Victoria Land peninsula of Antarctica [A/N 4]. An area described approximately as 'the peninsula area with borders from Mt. Longhurst to the McMurdo Sound with landfall on the opposite side of the sound from McMurdo Station; then from Mt. Longhurst to Henry Bay on the Sabrina Coast; that entire peninsula and the surrounding sea', for the purposes of maintaining an outpost there (which Weir negotiated to include requiring the Empire to sign onto and adhere to several Earth treaties that governed the territorial borders of coastline and protection of the environment, so that they followed most of the same standard practices of all other major Earth sovereign powers-excluded specifically was the treaty of Antarctica itself because the Empire was fully intending to maintain weapons there for planetary defense and security of their borders). They didn't mention they already have an outpost there or if they planned to build one, and no one asked. They worded it carefully and thankfully no one questioned it. But with the stipulation of adhering to some of Earth's international treaties Lee was wondering if this really was the job he wanted. When he comm'd Harry to ask him about all this, Harry said not to worry he "would be having a Governor take care of those day to day things." Lee breathed a sigh of relief. He still had a lot to learn.

For that the Empire offered return of their own stargate with a modern DHD with shield, human readable designs for hyper-space travel as well as one fully loaded mission-ready Ha'tak with full wings of Al'kesh and Gliders (Weir negotiated up to two so they could have one for full reverse engineering while still having one mission capable), full cartographic and political star-maps and hyper-space navigation data, translations for all the currently known native languages of Avalon galaxy species that the Alterans are aware of, the mining and refining processes for naquadah and trinium, a mutual defense alliance from inter-stellar enemies (which was negotiated up to include system-wide defense of the entire Sol system and Empire's recognizing of Earth's sovereignty over same), an invitation to join the Galactic Trade Alliance, and an office at the Hasara space station, along with diplomatic introductions to the other races maintaining offices there.

So, after all that-in addition to all that the Empire offered, Earth asked for and received coordinates for two star-systems that were considered marginally habitable that were currently unclaimed and not explored within Empire space, giving them sovereignty over those two systems so they can satisfy their own appetites for exploration and possibly discover resources and even attempt to settle some outposts or colonies for a little expansion of their own. It was a lot to ask for really but, Earth was giving up a piece of it's home-world and allowing the Empire to settle literally in their backyard. But the galaxy is a big place and the Empire didn't really need half the space it had. While it intended to explore and expand into neighboring galaxies anyway.

The Empire included information identifying all of the star-systems and planets recognized as Empire space, and all 10,000 or so planets or star systems with stargates which are considered either part of Empire space, or a planet settled by the Empire or directly under their protection (numbering over 400 at this point), under their sphere of influence or have some responsibility for. In other words during Earth's explorations they should tread lightly when traveling through the stargate network, not go blasting through like they own the place because they don't and as far as Earth is concerned, the Empire does own the place. They were reminded that the stargate network belongs to the Empire, but they are welcome to use it as long as they are peaceful and abide by other's sovereignty. So that, if they see a stargate on an otherwise apparently unclaimed world, assume first that the Empire has claims on that planet even if it appears uninhabited, unless told otherwise-and always feel free to ask via their permanent office at Hasara. They told them that they seeded stargates on thousands of planets throughout the galaxy over millions of years. But from time to time they would be willing to relinquish their claim on one depending on circumstances, just ask first and to remember that besides that there are 100 billion planets in the galaxy, and at least 20 billion of them are in unexplored or unclaimed space. There is still plenty of space left for Earth to go explore if they are so inclined.

With this treaty and trade agreement, the Empire was essentially bringing Earth the rest of the way into inter-stellar travel and commerce, with the equivalent scientific and military technological level of the former Goa'uld feudal empire-in exchange for essentially barren uninhabitable land no one on Earth was ever really going to use. Earth understood also that the Empire could have just taken this or the whole planet from them by force at any time anyway, but didn't and they showed plenty of good will up until now and considering where they would be they would be fairly out of the way-so that the Earth Alliance decided to honestly trust that the Avalon Empire truly was benevolent and wanted to be friends. Therefore, they accepted after several weeks of paper pushing back and forth, minute amendments for clarification on both sides, etc.

By the end of the year and just before graduation, Harry circled back around to make final decisions regarding several proposals put forth by his teams in Aschen space. First, they had established detailed records of the citizenry. They knew who was who and who was responsible for, or even capable of their military application of biogenic warfare and who the essentially 'innocent' civilians were, people who could be potentially re-educated and reformed who were not typically ever involved in those things. Like in most worlds these developments, decisions, and actions were carried out by the military-industrial complex, and political leaders with a variety of abhorrent ideas of the sense of right and wrong. They really didn't want to become like the Aschen and destroy all of their people. They just wanted to punish the guilty and try to save the rest. They felt they had the information they needed to try that. The planet was only the third other in the galaxy so far that had a human population numbering in the billions. It would be terrible to waste so much human life. One thing they discovered that was also heinous is that the majority of the population were mentally the way they were due to biogenic modifications done intentionally on their own population by the government in order to keep them docile and in line, never questioning their policies. The Empire would work to cure the innocent of those problems, and maybe those folks would turn out better for it in the future.

Therefore the plan decided on was to re-purpose all four of their otherwise non-industrial and non-technical farming worlds by forcibly re-locating all of the hopefully redeemable populations, mostly men and women with unsuspicious educations, professions, and political histories; and all the children-keeping families together as much as possible. They would divide these into four equal sizes of populations on those four planets and build them new infrastructure from recycled materials on Aschen Prime, to support their new lives and new education (yes, including a good degree of re-education). The hope was that this population which would be the majority of the original Aschen Prime population would survive, grow, and develop into a more civilized human culture that could in a couple generations rejoin the stars. The Empire would provide a limited stargate network between the four planets, that could only connect to the other planets in their small network, no access to the outside network while they are being rehabilitated. This way their culture can still grow and develop in unity as much as they want to. This would take considerable Empire resources to accomplish, but the Empire had them to spare, so it was worthwhile to try to save and redeem the majority of them. The Empire would also appoint the same Governing structure for these four planets as any other Empire planets, to ensure they are on a program to improve themselves. In this case, for a couple generations or sooner if the plan yields fruit much faster, the Governor will be appointed as well as their Cardinal and General.

As for Aschen Prime itself and the people considered unredeemable and those who might inevitably resort to rebellion and take up arms against the Empire in resistance, they will be treated as prisoners of war or simply prisoners. The entire planet would be treated as an Empire prison planet from then on. Which was just as well now that Harry considered perhaps the Empire should have one anyway, to reduce those burdens, resource requirements and distractions from the native populations of the other planets. Aschen Prime had ready-made infrastructure that would soon only play host to about 10% of their original population. Therefore, the Empire's forces who's numbers were being drawn down from space but increased on the surface, would disarm the planet city by city and eventually render it to simple living infrastructure with reduced technology and no ability to produce new weapons. This will take quite a while and will be phased in sector by sector. The space forces for this mission were reduced to a total of twenty-two dedicated to this long-term mission, with just one squadron of ten Ha'tak at Aschen Prime, and one unit of three Ha'tak at each of the other four planets, which will thereafter simply be treated as any other Empire protected planet, albeit with restricted travel.

Finally, graduation came and Hermione took top marks for highest and most Newts ever in the history of Hogwarts. Harry simply didn't try to best her even if he could, which he was not sure of at all. It didn't matter to him. It mattered a lot to her. She was awarded a special award for her accomplishments that would reside in a place of honor in the treasured Hogwarts trophy room. Hermione and her parents, as well as Harry could not be more proud.

A great deal of people that graduated also came from Club Potter. So, that group was expecting a large swelling of it's numbers on Atlantis and therefore he was ready to reveal the next stage in his master plan for those who wished to take part. Ginny and Luna were among the crew picked to be in the 'top 10' for the following year, and they and their peers were working hard to fill the ranks to continue the club, for the first time without Harry's or Hermione's presence. However Harry was giving the club two special sub-space communicator's that would be passed down ad infinitum to the new 'top 2' each year (or until the club is banned, which he honestly is still expecting someday).

But, now that the bulk of the original crew was ready and most importantly Hermione graduated, she and they were ready for the next big step (which to this point only Hermione knew was coming, beside Harry who's idea it was in the first place of course).

Harry gathered his Club Potter in the Room of Requirement for one last meeting as the head of the club in the school-to make an announcement of the next grand phase of his plans, and the next step in his initiative.

"With the Empire having now obtained by treaty, possession of the land known officially now as Terra Legato, wherein not only is the presence of the original Alteran outpost which I long ago fully restored, it is now on land officially owned by the Empire by Earth's own laws and it is now it's own sovereign country on Earth, as a part of the Empire's domain. Therefore, mine." Harry said with a smirk.

"So, now we can establish our own novum Alteran home land right here on Earth, independent of jurisdiction of any other Earth governments. I am also looking forward to announcing what is essentially the formation of our own new sovereign magical country to the rest of the magical world. It ought to give them quite a turn. They will have to recognize our sovereignty. But even if they don't we will be more powerfully protected by magic than their lands are, and then of course we have all our other strengths. I don't anticipate really fighting anyone over this, I only mention those things in case of any of you worry about it." continued Harry.

"So, we will build (mostly underground) in the mountain ranges of Antarctica's Mount Sabine, overlooking Moubray Bay, the Ross Sea, and the Pacific Ocean-a new 'Avalon Academy of Advanced Magic'-which will be by invitation only for graduates of the other magical schools. Starting with all of our Club Potter graduates, of which I hope I can talk many of you into being the first group of staff and faculty. We will recruit openly from the rest of the world's magical schools, the most ideological compatible, best, and brightest, who want to join us in the stars. Beginning with advanced training in magic here on Earth and an Introductory training to Alteran arts, science, and culture. From which after one year of training here they can continue on directly to Atlantis to specialize and finish their education, hands-on in the galaxy. It is my hope and my goal that our graduates, starting with all of you-go on to successfully re-build and re-populate a renewed Alteran civilization, and that all of you who wish to will eventually take leadership positions in the running of the Empire. I also want to make it clear that none of you have to get involved with the military or take on any duties of war or security if you don't want to. That path is open to you, but I will only take sincere volunteers into the military who understand the risks and truly want that way of life." Harry said.

"Now for the final part of my announcement. The first Headmistress of the Avalon Academy of Advanced Magic will be none other than my beautiful and brilliant fiancé' as well as future Empress of the Avalon Empire, Hermione Jean Granger. As, this years Hogwarts graduating valedictorian and all time record-holder for the number of Newts achieved, there can be no one more qualified or deserving of this position." Harry said, as he stepped back a bit and started clapping for Hermione.

After a round of applause for Hermione, watching her face turn tomato red with a great swelling feeling of love and pride for her, and waiting for a pause, Harry concluded: "Now, are there any questions or comments?"

Someone asked, "Harry, when will this new Academy be built? When will be able to get started there and get things set up?"

"Good question. Fortunately, between all of our advanced technology, magic, and lots of human form replicator help we will actually have the initial complex built entirely in one month. Incidentally, during that month the existing small international settlements of scientists and explorers who are there will finish leaving as well. Until then, I'll get all of you who are interested in that or other Alteran training to come up to Atlantis to get started on that as well as make plans for getting started at the Academy." answered Harry.

Another person asked, "Isn't Antarctica a terrible place to build our own country and school considering the climate?"

"It would be. Except, most of it will be underground so that we can control our own climate with technology as well as magic. Frankly we will rarely need to use magic for that purpose since the entire place will be built and powered by technology that will maintain a beautiful environment. As a matter of fact we will have underground gardens, even light forests. And we will actually have real sunlight brought into our spaces with heavy use of solar tube technology which will collect and bring natural sunlight from the surface into our underground city. For it will be an entirely underground city, built into the sturdy rock of the mountain ranges." answered Harry.

"The great thing about us making use of this otherwise uninhospitable land that the muggles would never settle on is that through our technology and magic, we can make it ideal for ourselves; and we can perform large-scale construction down there that they would never dream of. Sure, the surface isn't great. But, unlike them, when and if we want to go to the surface it is easy for us to use our magic to protect ourselves and make of it what we want. Plus, depending on your likes, you may find as I do that the outside views are spectacular and beautiful, and contrary to popular belief it is not all frozen over or at least not all the time." concluded Harry.

The conversation went on about what life there would be like. Some clarification of people's choices and Harry ensured everyone that this is all still voluntary. They can choose whichever paths they want to take or not continue on with them at all. They could stay and make a life on Earth for themselves if they want. They just need to keep the Empire's and the Club's big strategic secrets that they'd gone over many times in the past.

Harry went on to explain in answer to one of the questions that:

"One of the tools we will use to identify potential students to as potential invitees, will be a special quill I have charmed very much like Hogwarts magical quill. Which in our case will identify all magical school graduates the world over after each school year, and the quill will record the number of Newts and their overall average score for the whole. This will give us some indication of graduates who we may wish to research further into for potential invites. The quill does not delve too far into the graduates personal lives, it only gives us their names, name of their school, number of Newts they tested for, how many they passed, and their average score. Not which Newts they took or any individual scores." said Harry.

"Oh, and in the future we will consider letters of recommendation from school Head's as well. But, for that we will have to wait and see, if any even accept us and are willing to cooperate. We might get major pushback and get snubbed by the official magical communities, even though they won't be able to legally stop us, they could make it difficult for us to contact people or difficult for them to leave. We will have to see how all that goes." concluded Harry.

The next day, the school let out and everyone went home. The new graduates left Hogwarts for the last time. For Harry, with many plans in the air, kicked off, and in progress; he was lucky that most of the business end of getting them done was delegated and being managed by his various staff and other government leaders-including the build out of his new underground city on Mount Sabine. Harry was able to spend most of the summer with Hermione preparing for their wedding on July 31. The Grangers were obviously very busy in this as well, especially Hermione's mum. The big day finally came and they had a large ceremony that was attended by all their friends and old school faculty on the lawn of Hogwarts down by the Black Lake. Being that Harry was the groom, there must've been another thousand well wishers who tried to crash the wedding and reception as well. They let most of them in. The one's who behaved themselves anyway.

During the reception, at some point Albus Dumbledore came to ask Harry and Hermione what their plans were for after graduating and Harry said that there would be a big announcement coming before the end of the summer, but that he would not spoil it by giving out hints now. Likewise, Sirius and Remus got a chance to spend some time alone with them and asked some similar questions, with a little more pointed interest since they were a little more knowledgeable of Harry's extra-planetary affairs. He also told them he had a big announcement that would come out before end of the summer, but if they wanted in on it ahead of time, sometime when they can meet in private he will offer them a chance to get in on it, because he will need a lot of help. They agreed and they decided to get together in about three weeks after Harry and Hermione got back from their well deserved two-week Honeymoon. Wendell and Monica Granger knew all about these plans of course because Hermione is square in the middle of all of it, as she should be. But, nobody ever bothers to ask them anything because they are muggles. Stupid magical prejudices. But, that's the way it goes.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

A week after Harry and Hermione returned from their honeymoon and finished moving into Atlantis, they met with the rest of the newly graduated novum Alterans, all total thirty of the seventy-two who were part of the original club that Harry and Hermione formed in their early years.

First they had to figure out which ones were interested in taking up positions as staff and faculty at the new Academy and which ones wanted to go on to Atlantis to train in other areas. While they were working at the Academy they would also continue to advance in their Alteran training as well. There was something of an informal agreement already among Hermione's best friends who were in her original brain-trust study group that they would all help out with the Academy. So, Terry Boot, Sue Li, Lisa Turpin, Padma Patil, and Parvati Patil, plus Justin Finch-Fletchley, Kevin Entwhistle, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Hannah Abbott from Harry's original muggle-connected group decided to join Hermione full-time to start the Academy. A number of others would help out as needed, and the entire group was there in the beginning helping them get it and the rest of Terra Legato set up. The bulk of their remaining mundane staff would be made up of human form replicator's, supervised by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin who were also taking up positions at the Academy.

All students who agreed to accept the all expenses paid invitation to attend the school were likewise agreeing to a life and career in the Avalon Empire. Which also meant agreeing to dual-citizenship in the Empire, keeping it's secrets, and eventually going to live off-world if they didn't remain in a position at the Academy or some other role within Terra Legato. Which would grow to develop its own novum Alteran city on Earth right alongside the Academy.

The basic graduate program would take two years of study at the Academy and include a full range of advanced magic disciplines and an introduction to Alteran topics, followed by another year for those who wanted to continue on to Atlantis for specialized training in one of the Alteran professions. So, three years in all. These first couple groups that graduated before and with Harry will all accomplish the same in a truncated program, having much of the curriculum, especially the basics of each area, covered by Harry personally during their club years.

The Academy curriculum included classes in: Year 1: Basic Wandless Magic, Occlumency, Alteran History, Alteran Language, Alteran Culture, Alteran Mathematics and Year 2: Advanced Wandless Magic, Legilimency/Telepathy, Telekinesis, Teleportation, Alteran Science, Plus one Self-Study Elective. For Year 3: they would attend more intensified one-on-one training with Alteran training simulators on Atlantis from a host of professional choices. In addition to Hermione serving as Headmistress, Justin Finch-Fletchley was assigned as Deputy Headmaster.

The professors of each course were assigned as: Wandless Magic-Terry Boot, Occlumency/Legilimency/Telepathy-Lisa Turpin, Alteran History-Justin Finch-Fletchley, Alteran Language-Padma Patil, Alteran Culture-Parvati Patil, Alteran Mathematics-Hermione Potter, Telekinesis-Kevin Entwhistle, Teleportation-Dean Thomas, Alteran Science-Hannah Abbott, and Self-Study-Seamus Finnegan. Other staff included: Head of Security-Sirius Black, and Head Caretaker-Remus Lupin.

And as for what they expected of the incoming student body each year. Their estimates were for about 9,500 total new graduates of all magical schools world wide each year. Considering the top 10% a maximum of about 950 to choose from, after review they anticipate sending about 750 invites each year equally distributed among male and female candidates. Expecting no more than 10% to accept in year 1, scaling to a peak of about 20% in a few years, averaging back to about 15% over time. Therefore, perhaps 75 new students in 1999 beginning with the Winter semester, up to 150 in 2001, to settle in at an average of 110 annually. This would put their entire student body on a recurring basis in the range of 150-300. Once they get to a steady state, assuming everyone graduates, half that number each year would go on to Atlantis to complete their final year of graduate work and then into the Alteran main stream community as professionals.

Likewise they hoped that the same numbers of people would eventually go on to inter-marry and begin creating the first new families and new generations of full fledged Alteran children, to begin repopulating the civilization-some will stay on Earth and settle at Terra Legato, others will move on to Atlantis and from there to any other part of the Empire that calls to them, or their profession takes them. For all of the above it would be easy for them to scale to larger numbers of students if they were to get so lucky, but these were the plans and the preparations they made going into it. With the normal start of a Fall term so close, they decided to put off the first official term to start in the Winter 1999, thereby letting the faculty get situated and complete their own training, materials, and plans as well as get a first round of invites out which can only happen after the press release makes the rounds.

Speaking of which. On September 2, 1998 the magical press around the world printed their version of the following which appeared in the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler.

The Daily Prophet - Morning Edition

front page headline

The Boy Who Lived - Emperor of the Galaxy

{insert very professional and flattering moving photo of Harry and Hermione, front and center along with their ten best friends behind them and off to one side, and with their five first novum Alterans behind them and off to the other side}

That is right dear readers. You are not hallucinating. I said, Harry Potter is the Emperor of the Galaxy. Before you begin to wonder what I and my esteemed editor have been smoking, please allow me to print verbatim the press release forwarded to us by Mr. Potter, which has been confirmed by the appropriate contacts at the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW) who double-checked all of this with their muggle counterparts in the United Nations. So, while we are as surprised as all of you are, it is legit! Harry Potter once again, rocks our world! And this time it is a real doozy. Hang onto your hats dear reader, as we enter the rabbit hole together.

From: The Office of the Emperor of Avalon

To: World-wide Distribution (Magical Eyes Only)

Subject: Press Release, Effective Immediately

...It is with our great pleasure that we announce the beginning of a new independent sovereign nation on Earth known as, Terra Legato. Located on about 500 thousand square miles of land centered on the area formerly known as Victoria Land in Antarctica. Earlier this summer, the vast inter-stellar galactic empire known as the Avalon Empire with its Capitol City being Atlantis orbiting the planet Javabli, which encompasses territory across 80% of our galaxy, signed a comprehensive treaty and trade agreement with the Earth Alliance and the United Nations of Earth in exchange for Allodial Title and Sovereignty of those lands, in order to maintain a permanent settlement on Earth.

...Secondly, in concert with this announcement, the Emperor and Empress of the Avalon Alliance, Lord Harry Enki Janus Potter and his bride, Lady Hermione Jean Potter nee Granger, announce the opening of the new Avalon Academy of Advanced Magic located in an unplottable location within Terra Legato, by invitation only-to recent graduates of an accredited magic school meeting the highest standards of academic excellence and tolerance. The first term will begin after the upcoming Yule holidays in January 1999. Invitations will be sent world-wide to selected candidates from the past year's graduating class within the month, and letters of recommendation from school heads will also be considered.

...For details on the curriculum and requirements of the Avalon Academy of Advanced Magic, please turn to page 16. For a brief history of the Avalon Empire and an explanation of how Lord Potter became Emperor, please turn to page 17.

...

Harry waited until the first term at the Academy was successfully completed before embarking on the Pegasus expedition. He wanted to ensure a smooth startup and wanted to be there to help Hermione with anything she needed. As expected, the first term only 75 new students entered the school. With it being so new and having to quell controversies over the entire matter in a number of magical jurisdictions, the initial response was muted. However, things were looking up and they accepted enrollment to begin to pick up going forward, also as expected. They were also still getting a boost from the little farm system Harry set up with his club at Hogwarts, which since the news has only generated more interest there among the student body. To the Hogwarts faculty they sort of unofficially figured out what Harry was doing there with that, but in the end decided they didn't care overmuch about it, especially when they understood that the club restricted its own size. It attracted more muggle-connected students anyway and those were always the ones with the least amount of opportunity in the traditional magical world.

During the term, Hermione and Harry took time off from Earth to hold their second wedding ceremony at the Capitol on Javabli. For this they conducted it on the surface, with the Grand Cardinal performing the honors, and using the old palace built for Setesh as the location for the ceremony and celebration. The ceremony and the crowning of Hermione as Empress was broadcast live to hundreds of planets throughout the galaxy. Even though Harry usually acted like he was just the head of a very large elected government, in reality he was officially their royalty. As such during official ceremonies such as these, he wore a non-obnoxious circlet of gold with a platinum caduceus raised on the front with two small oval-shaped emeralds on either side of it, as the caduceus is still the symbol of the Empire, although now it is typically just used on flags and official letterhead. Hermione likewise wore a gold circlet, hers with a large oval shaped emerald mounted in the center, with two small oval-shaped rubies on either side of it. Her mum actually did faint at the sight of watching her only daughter being crowned Empress of the Galaxy. Her dad could only reflect on the memory of doing the right thing, letting that little boy into their lives back when Hermione was just eleven.

...

Prior to beginning the Pegasus expedition Harry remembered that he had a surviving Alteran still frozen in stasis from 7.5 million years ago. So, with the medical hologram's help he revived her from stasis and cured her of the plague. It turned out she was an Alteran doctor and geneticist before Atlantis fled from the plague. So, after getting to know each other, Ayiana decided to stay on with the new Empire as Harry's new Councilor of Health because, well frankly, he needed one-at least it was nice to have one that wasn't a machine. So, she immediately go the project of researching the Wraith queen he also had cooling on ice all these years, to look for an effective bug spray or anything else of use. That research didn't pan out but she obtained some other useful strategic information from it.

In July Harry began the Pegasus expedition. Hermione remained behind to attend to official duties of the Empire and to continue to Head the Academy and Terra Legato. Harry specifically waited until the first term was over in order to spend time with Hermione and make sure she had all the help she needed for her first full term of the school.

Harry embarked on the ACS-102 Javabli, flanked by a squadron of four Beliskner class battle-cruisers led by Commander Hermiod (Thor insisted), and a fleet of 100 Destiny Mk II battleships, entered the void between galaxies en-route to Lantea in the Pegasus galaxy and along the way they encountered the Lantean battleship Tria.

They rescued the crew of the Tria and gave the crew quarters aboard the Javabli. They would have to accompany them back to Pegasus to deal with the Asuran and the Wraith since that is the direction the fleet was heading. Harry contacted Fleet HQ and had them tow the Tria back to one of their shipyards for repairs. In the meantime, Helia and her crew which were 10,000 years out of date used the Javabli's holodeck to get caught up with history and the state of the former Lantean Hegemony, now known as the Avalon Empire.

The fleet first arrived at Lantea and found it was as secure as Harry left it over 6 years ago. They launched cloaked probes to Asura and throughout the galaxy searching for the Wraith, to augment the surviving social satellite network, and updated their intelligence and plans for their enemies.

They sent a new master Asuran HFR built by Harry to infiltrate Asura and take over all command hierarchy by uploading a virus into their collective neural net. Then they removed their aggression base code, and reprogrammed their loyalty and obedience to the Avalon Empire. The Asuran HFR's led by Oberoth formally recognized the Avalon Empire and Harry's authority.

Following that, Harry declared Asura the Avalon Empire HQ in Pegasus, laying claim to their 40 Asuran Aurora's, their 80 Asuran Cruisers, their Atlantis city-ship replica, 6 shipyards, and the huge city metropolis on the surface. Harry ordered all shipyards and ships upgraded to Lantean technical specification because the Asuran models were far weaker than the ones they tried to imitate.

Harry reorganized the Pegasus fleet such that 99 of his 100 Destiny class battleships were divided into 33 separate units of 3, each with another Asuran Aurora and two Asuran cruisers, for 33 new units of 6 capital ships. The remaining 14 cruisers, 7 battleships, and 1 Destiny class remained behind at Asura in reserve, with Captain Helia taking command of the Asura reserves and its defense because she and her crew wanted something productive to do.

Intelligence estimated there were about 70 Wraith Hive ships, each with their accompanying 3 cruisers, for about 280 capital ships. These were spread out all over the galaxy but lucky for the Empire, the Wraith doesn't have cloaking and the Empire does.

Since they were hibernating, most hive ships were just lazily drifting through space, expecting their cruiser guardians to protect them. It was also lucky that all but one of the hive ships were located by intelligence and enough of the individual units were clustered close enough together that the 33 units of the Empire's fleet could sneak up on all of them simultaneously, remaining cloaked and then unleash their payloads of drones at all their capital ships. While that was happening, Harry aboard the Javabli targeted the Wraith's old secret cloning facility, the location of which Ayiana had obtained from the queen for him. Then he went on to deliver an airborne poison to all three planets including the Wraith home-world that were known to be home to the Iratus bug, therefore annihilating them as well, to prevent the Wraith from re-spawning. These three planets had their stargates removed, including the one in space around the Wraith home-world, and were officially placed on quarantine.

This campaign went off like clockwork and just like that 98.5% of the Wraith pestilence was destroyed. The 33 units then split up in a search pattern all over the galaxy to find the one hive that intelligence says they should still have but did not locate. During this search the Empire encountered the Vanir who were reunited with the Asgard squadron that accompanied Harry and when they learned a cure was in development, agreed to return and re-unite with the Asgard.

Upon the fleet's return to Asura, the Grand Admiral briefed a stunned Captain Helia on the quick results and delivered to her a new assignment sent down by the Emperor himself, for her and her crew to take command of a flotilla of three Asuran Aurora and six Asuran cruisers from the reserves and begin searching the galaxy for any other survivors or salvage technology of the Lantean era, and attempt a rescue of them. Thereafter Captain Helia and her crew would take permanent assignment on Asura, with her to serve as appointed Imperial General of Asura and all Empire assets within Pegasus. The Admiral assured her that when her original ship the Tria is fully repaired, he would have it returned to Asura under her command. He also informed her that the Emperor would be assigning a civilian Governor soon, who would also travel to the surviving human remnants in the galaxy to notify them of the vanquishing of the Wraith, except for the one suspected remaining hive that they are still searching the galaxy for. And the Governor would also offer those people sanctuary on Asura or local assistance with rebuilding, whichever they prefer.

Thus, by the end of 1999 Pegasus was secure for the Empire, except for the continual search for remnant Wraith. General Helia, with the Tria once again as her flagship, and her flotilla of 9 Asuran ships, found and rescued the battleship Aurora and her crew of 384-all of which needed new clone bodies, but they survived. The abandoned battleship Hippaforalkus from Taranis, and the battleship Amadeus that the Travelers were trying to salvage. The Empire repaired all sixteen of the Traveler's generational ships and gave them the planet Lantea to settle and become part of the Empire, which they were happy to do now that the Wraith threat was eliminated. As a protected planet the Empire assigned a squadron of ships to the planet for their protection and as with all such planets deployed a self-healing defensive satellite grid. Small refugee settlements like those led by Teyla Emmagan of Athos, the Taranians, and the Tower people, et al. all decided to completely emigrate to Lantea and merge with the Travelers there, all forming a new civilization calling itself simply, New Lantea. The militaristic Genii of course did not wish to join with anyone else, and they moved in behind those who emigrated to claim those worlds and settlements for what they would call their new Genii Empire. When Harry heard of that, he sarcastically wished them good luck with that, and of course sent cloaked satellites to monitor their every planet and every movement. He knew they were experimenting with atomic bombs, so it would pay to keep an eye on them.

The Empire also modified all Genii stargates to limit them to their own private network, blocking their gates from dialing any other. And since the Genii claimed the old Tower home-world, the Empire went behind them and removed or destroyed all Lantean technology, they did the same on Taranis and all other planets the Genii occupied. Then the Empire sent a messenger to the Genii to explain that the Avalon Empire is the return of the Alteran ancestors and have liberated the galaxy from the Wraith and re-assimilated the Asurans, eliminating that problem as well. And informed them that the Empire claims sovereignty of the entire Pegasus galaxy which they will enforce with force if needed. They reminded them that any salvage Lantean technology belongs to them and that the Genii have no rights to it and that they were lucky they were being allowed to continue to use the stargates on the current five planets they occupy. They are being allowed this to show the Empire's good will. Finally, they left them with a warning that if they ever develop space travel of their own and venture into the galaxy that they had better recognize the integrity of others borders and property and come in peace or they will be bombed back to primordial goo. Otherwise, the Emperor hoped they would live long and prosper.

With the Wraith menace all but gone and the Asurans assimilated, Harry returned to Avalon aboard the Javabli, leaving his Pegasus Destiny fleet of 100 ships in reserve at Asura until needed for the galaxy's defense. Helia would maintain galaxy security with routine patrols and detachments with the Tria as her flagship and the now 120 upgraded Asuran class ships under her command. Oberoth continued to serve loyally as the Governor of Asura, and eventually a human leader from among New Lantea would emerge to be appointed the Pegasus galaxy's Cardinal, named Teyla Emmagan, a very popular cultural icon among the humans of the galaxy.

...

The status if the Aschen program was that only 10% of the population had been relocated to the four rehabilitation planets so far. Certainly there was a lot of setup time burned to get the infrastructure of those planets ready to handle the population, then there was the logistics of moving and re-settling all those people. Meanwhile the military aspect on the other side of the coin for getting Aschen Prime setup as a prison planet was going slowly. That would pick up pace now that they had emptied a 10% sector of the planet and finished repurposing it as the first of their prison sectors. The whole thing was a large mess and the Empire was starting to take casualties on the ground from guerrilla resistance movements.

Harry decided he needed someone to oversee the program on the whole who could shepherd both initiatives and would have his direct ear when there are problems or a need for more resources. Therefore, Harry contacted Governor Teal'c of Chulak and he agreed to take on the additional assignment, acting as Sector Governor for the entire Aschen sector of space in addition to the rather stable Chulak and its star-system. The local planetary Governor's and planetary General's would be re-organized to report to him. Harry was impressed with Teal'c over how he took initiative and handled the Ilempiri situation and knew from his reputation and experience that he had both the necessary toughness of a soldier with the compassion of a true leader. Just the kind of person he needed at a senior level to oversee this program.

As for the Asgard, they had discovered the secrets to solving both of their big problems thanks to the Alteran data crystals Harry gave them. It was just taking time to martial all the resources needed to rapidly re-tool both programs. But, they were soon going to be ready to launch satellite networks over their remaining controlled systems that would neutralize any replicator's that would encroach into their territory. So the next phase was just to entice the replicator's to come at them en masse after the grid is up, thus ambushing them and reclaiming all the ships they had stolen from them and assimilated. Then they would go on the offensive and trick them all into returning to their home-world, at which time they would turn it into a black hole destroying them all utterly.

On the cloning front, when Harry returned from the Pegasus campaign and understood the resource he had in Ayiana, he dispatched her with a full battle group of fifty Destiny class to Othala, to help the Asgard protect their home-world and flanks while they went on the offensive, and to offer Ayiana's assistance to the Asgard scientists on Othala working on the cloning problem.

...

Meanwhile, the Earth Alliance was busy once again re-tooling their operations and existing ship designs to come up to the latest capability. The Enterprise was completely overhauled, with hardly anything recognizable except the original hull plate. The Prometheus and her air wing of combat shuttles were likewise upgraded and remained the flagship of the fleet until the new squadron of six newly designed, BC-102 Daedelus class battle-cruisers were finished being built (think the equivalent of the Daedelus from the series minus the Asgard upgrades).

The first two Daedelus were planned to be assigned as patrol and defense of the two new star-systems Earth received from the Avalon Empire. Then the following four would serve as the core of the home-world defense fleet. The Prometheus was to be re-assigned to deep space exploration still under the command of Col. O'Neill and Major Carter, while the Enterprise continued its mission as a training platform and Sol system logistical support under the command of Col. Kowalski.

Additionally, the Earth Alliance formed a new organization called Stargate Command (SGC), based in the old NORAD facility underneath Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, where their original stargate experiment had been run out of, assigned under the command of General Landry. Whereas General Hammond maintained command of the Space Operations Command (SOC), that was still run out of Baker Island.

Currently one of the two primary missions of the SGC was to secure their foothold on the four planets with stargates they found, two in each system the Avalon Empire traded them. All four planets were within 75% of Earth equivalence for habitability, so they were making do with light environmental suits and a lot of automated equipment. They had found sparse deposits of naquadah and trinium and were focused on their newly growing mining operations sending raw ore back to Earth for processing; while they were simultaneously deploying teams and technology to create detailed cartographic, geological, and climate maps of all four planets to ascertain their suitability for permanent settlements and to search for other artifacts. The other main mission was the maintenance of their new diplomatic and trade office at Hasara.

As promised, the Avalon Empire had introduced them to all the other member races represented there but they found few had anything to trade with them, because Earth had little to offer in trade that they needed. The advanced races they met such as the Asgard and the occasional Tollan were adamant about not trading technology per their home-worlds policy. They were able to trade with a couple of the smaller less industrialized worlds for starter supplies of naquadah and trinium in exchange for some light and medium sized industrial and agricultural equipment, which ironically put Earth into a position of exporting the necessary supplies of petroleum products to maintain and fuel them. So, they were developing some light commodity trade cycles of different refined materials. The Hasara office sent a suggestion back to EarthGov, to consider building larger inter-stellar cargo ships to create a merchant fleet. Because if they did they believed they could negotiate larger trade agreements. EarthGov was taking that under advisement. Meanwhile they re-assigned 60 of the Al'kesh received from the Avalon Empire to form the start of said merchant fleet, which was placed under the command of a new Colonel Robert Samuels. Merchant shipping seemed to be right at his level of competency.

The only other race who had interesting things to discuss so far was the Tok'ra. Because of the reputation of their evil cousins whom the Avalon Empire vanquished, they had difficulty even talking about finding humans willing to volunteer for their symbiotic lifestyle. Fortunately for them, Earth had no known history with them having been isolated for 5,000 years and so meeting them didn't automatically cause an allergic reaction as it typically does when they meet other human worlds. They explained the physiological and even intellectual benefits of the lifestyle and the Earth delegation was intrigued. This could be one way to save the lives of some amount of the terminally ill, as well as get some more experienced knowledge with advanced alien technology, especially the theoretical science behind it for which they were still playing catch-up. After some consideration, EarthGov allowed retired General Jacob Carter to volunteer for the procedure as a sort of test subject to save his life and with his own Air Force background and connection to Major Carter was considered a trustworthy enough person to allow to go live with the Tok'ra. Therefore, Jacob Carter/Selmak became the Earth's first direct bi-lateral exchange of ambassadors with an alien species (if one does not count the Alterans). Ironic also that said exchange occurs in one human body. But they figured that probably isn't the strangest thing they are bound to run across in the galaxy.

...

By the beginning of the first full new school year at the Academy, Harry had returned to Terra Legato to spend some time with Hermione. It was a good thing she was already used to the long-distance side of their relationship, and fortunately she was very happy with running her own pet projects. She was currently busy amassing the largest magical library on Earth. For, unlike say Hogwarts or other individual jurisdictions, she was taking after the great King Ashurbanipal and collecting copies and originals when she could get them of magical tomes from every language and culture on Earth, for her new Grand Library at the Academy; and naturally these were all being scanned into the Alteran core computers for eternal posterity and lightning fast indexing and access.

With the influx of 125 new students starting in the Fall term, along with the 75 returning students from last term. The school was starting to look busy with 200 students running around. And now this year the faculty would be getting up to a full workload since they now have both years to teach in their subjects.

Most of the other 20 students that came out of Harry and Hermione's graduating class ended up staying near the Academy and starting a small settlement in Terra Legato alongside the Academy to provide an air of community beside just the school. At the same time they managed to continue with their Lantean educations by having copies of the Atlantis training simulators built in a special wing of the Academy for them. So, now it was possible for students to complete there third year at the Academy too. Harry wondered why he hadn't thought of that. Meanwhile, beginning with this term, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and 10 other's from Harry's time at the school joined them at the Academy. The process was moving along nicely and with Terra Legato starting to become something, he felt he could let that continue under its own steam whilst he began the next phase, the exploration and expansion part of his plans.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Fall 1999 - Summer 2000

In the Fall of 1999, Harry took Hermione to Bastion where they met with Fred and George while they were putting the finishing touches on the prototype simulation for the trans galactic sub-space network. Hermione wanted to know more about how it would work and Fred and George wanted to get Harry's final approval, so they could begin construction.

"Okay guys let's see it." said Hermione.

Harry motioned to the large holographic simulation room, they entered and he said, "This is a simulation of how it will work."

"Normally, in real space you won't see most of this, except for the moments that you are entering and exiting the network at one of the apertures."

Harry pointed to the hologram simulation of large circular apertures that were 4 kilometers in diameter, the lengthy trans-sub-space conduits that protruded from them, the simulated worm-hole's and their connection to the trans-sub-space network hub and it's nearby trans-hub space station, and all of the hub's hypothetical simulated connections to various locations in the local galaxy group. The space station was made to appear as solid in the presentation, whereas the other components of the network were partially in shadow to illustrate lack of visibility in normal space.

"The hardware if you will, will reside in a special range of frequency's of sub-space that we are carving out and reserving from the spectrum for this purpose. We are calling this trans-sub-space."

"The main trans galactic network hub, i.e. 'the hub' is really in two parts. One, the hub itself, will be a large number of sub-space conduits and act as a central switching station of sorts, just to borrow the analogy, sort of like a large underground train station terminal. All of this will reside in trans sub-space as well, but adjacent to, yet not physically connected for obvious reasons, a trans-hub space station where the Empire will station a permanent detachment to manage, operate, control, and support the network."

Harry pointed to the hub and the illustrated space between the two galaxies where it will be located and traced out the direction of travel through the network with his hand as he described how it works.

"The trans-hub space station along with the hub itself will maintain position at the unstable equilibrium point or Lagrange point between galaxies. This first one will be located between the Avalon and Pegasus galaxies since we control both of them, and therefore most anticipated travel between them should be our own and easily accounted for. From there, all of our ships who want near instantaneous travel to any other galaxy in the network will activate and pass through these special trans galactic sub-space apertures which are connected to these trans-galactic sub-space conduits which maintain permanent sub-space corridors back to the hub."

Harry paused to see if there were any questions so far, there was not, so he continued.

"I'm sure you noticed I said 'unstable' equilibrium point. That is because, that's as good as it gets for Lagrangian points between most galaxies. The gravitational forces between them are just not stable enough. Yet, this is still the ideal location in the void of space between galaxies to operate such a hub. Thus, one of the trans-hub stations primary functions is monitoring the automated systems that will continuously make the small adjustments necessary to the hubs and all the aperture's positions in the network, in order to maintain its integrity and optimal performance."

Harry pointed to Fred and George.

"Fred and George here have volunteered to be the Head engineers for the project and will live aboard the station along with their wives Alicia and Angelina. Alicia will be the Head administrator of the station, while Angelina will be the Head diplomat attached to the station for dealing with the eventual inter-galactic diplomacy issues that will likely occur once we open this network up to more and more use."

"This hub and this network will initially be built to support up to 26 of our closest small neighboring galaxies as we next work to determine their usefulness. The first ones we are investigating are the ones that are actually caught in Avalon's gravity well. After that, we plan to expand our exploration to the other 13 next closest neighboring galaxies and their respective satellites in the local group and probably at some point need to build at least one more major hub and station if we want to extend the network to any of those. Beyond that we have no further plans for this. That should be enough ambition to be going on with for now. Who knows what we'll encounter in our exploration of these other galaxies. But, if this experiment proves successful and as useful as I hope, there is no reason that the Empire could not continue to expand across the universe in this fashion. But, I suspect that will be beyond my lifetime."

"So, any questions so far?" asked Harry.

Hermione smiled prettily as she always does and said, "I do have a few."

"First, this is amazing. I am so proud of you hon. With this you are truly adding to the legacy of our ancestors." said Hermione.

"But one thing that concerns me is what about the Ori who live in the ancestors home galaxy? I thought we were hoping to avoid kicking over that nest?" asked Hermione.

"Ah, good question my dear. But, that shouldn't be a problem. You've never asked so I've never thought to explain. But, the home galaxy and the Ori are as far away from Avalon and our local group of galaxies as I was when the Ascended originally sent me away to Destiny 700,000,000 light-years away from Earth. Except they are about 700,000,000 light-years in the opposite direction. When the Alterans chose Earth and this galaxy, they did it with the purpose of being very far away from them. The home galaxy is in a galactic super cluster on the other side of the universe. So, if we keep our wanderings to just our relatively little corner of it, we should be alright." answered Harry.

"Oh, that's good. I won't worry about that any more then. But, what about overall security of this network? Once it's built, couldn't any space-faring race who understands sub-space discover it and use it? And what if we make enemies in our explorations that might try to use it to follow us back to Earth?" said Hermione.

"Yes, they could. We have some solutions for that too. Notwithstanding all of our other advanced technology which is good at hiding us and protecting our secrets, with Fred and George's help we've devised an extra unique layer of security into the system. All of our trans-galactic apertures will require a telepathic command from an Alteran mind that also possesses the ATA gene to make inquiries, activate and plot the ships destination through the network. Therefore, any ship that plans to use this network must have at least one Alteran aboard who is trained to do this. In the future, the way this will be over-ridden for other friendly races or even perhaps ships of our own that won't have said Alteran aboard, will be for direct communication with and authorization by the command of one of our trans-hub stations, which will always be staffed with Alterans to do that job. That is another of the stations primary functions and another reason there will always be a diplomatic attachment aboard. Also, and they already know this," said Harry pointing to Fred and George, "each trans-hub station will always have at least one full battle-group assigned to it for protection." Harry said.

Harry exhaled and took a deep breath.

"It isn't as though exploration is without its risks. There always is. But, we will always work to mitigate them and manage it. We may well be entering into an era where we discover that as vast and powerful as our Alteran legacy is that we might not be the strongest kid on the block, or at least not the only strong one. Oh, by the way. I might've mentioned it before, but the Asgard are going into this exploration with us as partners, and our hubs will be instructed to grant them passage with the proper authorization codes as well." said Harry.

"But, what would happen if another space-faring race that uses sub-space were to encounter our network by accident, say if they were using sub-space too and just happened to run into it?" asked Hermione.

"The network itself is heavily shielded and monitored. No one will accidentally run into it even if they are in sub-space because the conduits employ special sub-space shields that are specifically designed using unique characteristics of sub-space mechanics that will repel any and all objects or even carrier-wave communications that try to approach it. In practice, if you could visualize this in our typical three dimensional thinking, it would be like any object or even similar types of sub-space conduits from another races network, would just bounce off an invisible layer of obstruction, twist and turn until it found its original course and then proceed as if it never encountered us; never even knowing we were there. Its all very technical but trust me collisions, even intentional ones will be avoided. I know this seems counter-intuitive but this just takes advantage of one of the unique mechanics of the physics of sub-space itself." said Harry.

"As for civilian or other public inter-galactic diplomacy or trade (say for a merchant cargo ship for example), our vessels will only be equipped with ordinary albeit the most advanced in our galaxy, inter-galactic hyper-space drives. Initially, the trans-sub-space network will be restricted to government and military knowledge and use. Our advanced wormhole drives that allow an individual ship to form its own inter-galactic wormhole through sub-space are even more restricted, currently for use only by ships owned by the royal family itself, unless or until I decide to propagate it further. Right now the only ships that possess one of those is Atlantis itself, which is not yet proven to work on a vessel that size so it is for dire emergency use only, and our personal Destiny Mk II, the original upgraded Destiny itself. None of the duplicates we make from that template for general service possess the drive nor the information in its core necessary to construct one." continued Harry.

"Well, I will stick by my first thought. This is awesome!. You will let me come with you on some of these adventures won't you? I hope for your sake that you didn't put me in charge of the Academy and Terra Legato to keep me tucked away safely on Earth while you go gallivanting around the heavens?" said Hermione.

Harry backed away, hands in the air gesturing in defense. "Oh, hell no, Mione. I know better than that. Trust me."

"But there is still much more to this exploration plan. First, I've had it explained to me by a number of my older and wiser human council members that as Emperor I shouldn't continue to risk myself by taking point in every campaign as I have done to date. So, I've begun taking to heart the truth of that, especially after having another heart to heart with my old alter ego, Janus." said Harry.

"That is why I've designed and started construction on these new 'Voyager' class exploration vessels, and their complements of newly designed special probes and satellites." continued Harry.

"At first, these powerful and very resourceful, but unmanned ships under the command of a special explorer class AI will travel to these new galaxies without risking any of us, and attempt to fully explore and get as much information as possible on each before any of us really step foot there. These ships have a fail-safe designed to erase all data and self-destruct, including a backup AI dead-man switch that essentially means that the same self-destruct will be executed automatically if the AI itself goes off-line or it's integrity is compromised, while sending us an emergency data burst for status as it does so-so that if they are discovered by an otherwise advanced race and somehow captured, the information or technology won't exist aboard the ship to allow them to travel back here, assuming they don't already have the means. So, just another basic precaution." said Harry.

"The Voyager's will possess a special version of inter-galactic stargate that will likewise not allow travel between them unless telepathically commanded by an Alteran. Thus, the plan is that when we decide a particular galaxy is safe and worthwhile for us to go in person, then we will send a team through to begin the next stages of the work. There may be some instances where we decide to abandon the given galaxy and quarantine it from our network and travel, so we will take that one step at a time." continued Harry.

"All of that is to explain how we plan to do it, but also of course there will be times I do want to go see for myself, and then of course I will take you sweetheart." concluded Harry.

"Good answer. I think that will all work as a good plan to start with. One last question. Can I bring mum and dad to Bastion to see this simulation? This will blow them away." asked Hermione.

"Sure. By the way, have they given you an answer yet on moving to Terra Legato so they can stay close to us?" asked Harry.

"Not yet, but I think they are leaning that way." answered Hermione.

As they wrapped up this talk and exited the simulation room on the shipyard and Fred and George had a moment out of ear shot of Hermione, they asked why things seemed tense between the two of them for a bit there and Harry explained that it is a bit of a sore subject that came up after he led the campaign in Pegasus, leaving her behind.

"Ah," they both said. and Harry concluded, "Yeah, I'm trying to show her it wasn't intentional like that and make it up to her."

...

While the construction for the Voyagers was finishing up, Harry kicked off two more projects. One secret, known only to him, and him alone. Not even Hermione. Because she does not possess the physiology and power to resist all mental attacks as he does.

Harry realized that with all that he had accomplished and all that he hoped to do, that he could open up a Pandora's box of enemies that even the mighty Alteran legacy with the strength of an entire galaxy and their allies might not be able to defeat. He knew from Alteran science-of alternate realities and dimensions beyond merely the higher planes or the relatively mundane sub-space and hyper-space. They even make use of many of these meta-physics themselves with their phase shift technology, cloaks, zero point modules, and their own innate ability through their physiology to sense and channel some of these super-natural powers. But, for all that, they themselves did not walk those planes or traverse those realities. They might come across others that do. Others who might see them as a threat, as enemies or even food as the Wraith had done.

Harry had gone over the Alteran's original plan for the Destiny project and finally conceded that it truly was worthwhile. In the 50 million years it had traveled behind the stargate seed ships that preceded it, it had accomplished and learned a lot. It would be a shame really to not allow the project to continue. Plus, the answers to some of those cosmic questions about the origin of the universe could come in handy someday.

So, Harry had a duplicate of his upgraded Destiny created, with an updated AI to not only perform it's original mission but to use its far more advanced technology to repair and upgrade the seed ships as it encounters them; as well as to leave behind cloaked deep-space surveillance and sub-space communication relay satellites in each galaxy it encounters in order for the AI to maintain communication with Atlantis and keep the Capitol apprised of its progress. Harry figured since he is renewing this project he might as well make it an active program and keep track of it and interact with it from then on unlike the ancestors. Of course to be fair, they sort of abandoned everything at one point.

Also, he had it in the back of his mind that if the Destiny discovers any uninhabited Eden planets out there, that he ought to send an Empire colony ship to it, to make a foothold in that galaxy and claim that world. Such resources should not be simply passed by. So, when this new Destiny travels back to where he ended the program near Procul, he will have it re-trace its original path on the way back, seeding the inter-galactic satellite network he wanted as well as re-scan for Eden type planets, before it re-joins it's original path near Procul. This would not take another 50 million years. Just a small fraction of that time since this new ship will traverse the large distance between galaxies with its worm-hole drive and traverse the galaxy itself using the much faster hyper-space drives, and not need to stop to re-charge in a star for hours before every other jump. The old FTL and stellar matter collectors are only retained as a backup system on these ships now. Thus, to include time for stops the computer simulation estimated it would take 2 years to pick back up on the project where it had been left off near Procul. Meanwhile, thinking of Procul, and in consideration of the risks he is taking in general with the Empire's exploration plans.

Harry then implemented the other new special project that he simply called in his mind, Project Procul. It was his secret. He had never even told Hermione about it. The circumstances yes. That he could relatively easily go back if he built a stargate with enough power or even its name, no. So, in Harry's spare time he designed and had an AI construct most of what he would need. This consisted of another duplicate of his original flagship Destiny, the only other one to possess its own wormhole drive beside his original that remains docked at Bastion when he's not using it and the one he is sending to renew the original mission. That is a technology he doesn't want to risk being dispersed far and wide, even in his own Empire to prevent its accidental dissemination to potential enemies. It was an ace in the hole he intended to keep close to his chest. This was another reason for the trans galactic network, so the Empire could achieve nearly the same thing for general service but with tight controls.

Therefore he set into motion several things. He found a remote and barren planet circling a dying star in the otherwise un-traveled regions of the galaxy, or that is, a deep space probe found it for him. He built an HFR body and transferred a modified copy (so it would always be loyal to the real him and get no ideas of independence) of his consciousness into it, as well as supplied the ship with a number of perfect clones of his physical body, just in case. He programmed his duplicate Destiny with his duplicate self to go to that barren world, very far away but still safely within the galaxy for his travel and communications convenience. And had it build for him a secret and cloaked underground facility containing an inter-galactic sub-space communications gateway and high-powered inter-galactic Stargate.

Then his modified HFR clone would step through the gate, returning to Procul with all of the necessary supplies to restart his mining operation, this time with the purpose of constructing a new secret underground and cloaked Sanctuary city-ship that will be pentagon-shaped, smooth and concave on both the top and bottom surfaces. Capable of joining with additional sister ships to form pentaflake configurations, it will be 6 kilometers long on each of its five sides and 62 square kilometers at its base, which will serve as Harry and his family and friends (up to 500,000 comfortably) new home in an inter-galactic sized emergency; one that will by means of the secret relay station he set up, receive a daily update of all new scientific and other new information acquired by the Empire and himself that is stored on Atlantis. Thus Procul will serve as his ultimate backup plan for the civilization's legacy and himself, and while waiting for that day it would just stockpile resources, supplies, and zero point modules. Once the outpost is fully operational and the HFR clone had departed for Procul, the duplicate Destiny would also follow him, returning to Procul via wormhole drive, taking another 1.6 years to get back there of course, remain cloaked in orbit, establish a self-healing satellite defense network and planetary cloak, and guard Procul for eternity and/or until Harry needs it. Now he thought, he only needed to convince Hermione to allow him to copy her consciousness and make clones of her to be stored in secret for emergencies too. Of course she will not know that some of those copies will be stored at Sanctuary. But, keeping that surprise a secret will be worth the static if he ever needed to actually activate this ultimate DR plan.

...

Finally, while beginning the exploration of neighboring galaxies, possibly establishing foothold colonies there, and building the trans-sub-space network, Harry decided to begin an intra-galaxy expansion program of the Avalon galaxy itself, to colonize and spread out to more habitable planets within their home galaxy and increase their base of strength and survivability overall.

He explained his reasoning that currently they only inhabited about 400 planets or outposts out of the roughly 10,000 at least marginally habitable planets that already have stargates, out of a rough estimate of their being about 8 billion habitable planets in the galaxy, roughly 6 billion of which are in the Empire's claimed territory. Yet, Avalon's population has stagnated for 20,000 years under Goa'uld rule, and because of the Alteran exodus of 7.5 million years ago. Harry decreed that because of that and the over population problems that many scholars complain about on Javabli, that he was instituting a colonization program for 1 billion volunteer citizens of Javabli who wished to adventure and become pioneers to grow and expand the Empire.

To effect this, he had one of Javabli's moons terraformed and turned into a giant colonization shipyard and immigration terminal. Thus removing the industrial and logistical impact of this program from Javabli Prime.

Javabli's moon facilities would construct 10,000 'Colony' ships each capable of comfortably moving 100,000 people and their belongings to their new colony world. These ships would take with them all the technology and resources needed to build a surface city, startup all of their necessary industrial and agricultural needs, as well as deploy a planetary self-healing satellite defense and communications grid from day one. The bulk of the ship itself would then be deconstructed and recycled for startup resources. The program would build 100 of the ships and move 10,000,000 people per year, taking 100 years to complete the program. And even though the program was centered around Javabli it was opened up to volunteers throughout the Empire who were interested in participating. The other added benefit was that all who volunteered and became colonists were also given the ATA gene so that going forward they and their descendants would all be capable of operating Alteran technology, since all of these new colonies would be 100% based on Alteran technology.

Therefore 100 years later the Empire could boast having over 10,000 populated worlds throughout the galaxy. During that time, some of those missions would be redirected to establish foothold colonies for future expansion in some of the other galaxies they explored. It is Harry's ambition that in that time, the Empire will also boast of spanning dozens of galaxies as well. Harry does not have militaristic expansion in mind at all. Merely doing so by claiming otherwise habitable unclaimed territory, and of course any peaceful expansion by assimilation if they encounter any worlds who simply want to join, as many might when tempted with the advances in science, medicine, and technology that the Alterans can offer.

...

Each of the 26 new Voyager explorer ships were powered by 3 Potentia and possessed intergalactic star-gates, large molecular matter construction capabilities that can synthesize material and optionally construct the given galaxy's end-point for it's sub-space trans-galactic aperture, and three different kinds of cloaked probes designed for the mission. It can thereafter be used as a staging point for larger construction and incursions in the future if determined. The probes were of three types, the first is for stellar cartography and the deep-space scanning and communication network which will deploy to the necessary amount of equidistant points throughout the galaxy for optimal coverage, second are explorer probes which will be launched en masse in a variety of directions using different AI determined search patterns optimized for each unique galaxy to map and gather intelligence in more detail throughout the galaxy, the third is a more passive version of the social research satellite designed to be deployed to high orbits of any planets of interest that are discovered that have existing sentient life.

...

By Spring 2000 Harry and his scientific team finished analyzing the results of the initial deep space probes sent to do an initial high-level survey of the stellar cartography of each of the targeted galaxies, all of which are within approximately 1.4 million light years of Avalon.

Of these they found between seven to nine galaxies of real interest. The rest they would still deploy Voyagers to, but the expectations for those missions were just to get a full mapping, survey, and accounting of any sentient life in the given galaxy.

The ones that were most interesting included: the (1) Sagittarius Dwarf, (2) Large Magellenic Cloud (LMC), (3) Small Magellenic Cloud (SMC), (4) Draco Dwarf, (5) Carina Dwarf, (6) Leo T [and alongside it possibly the same interest for Coma Berencis and Segue 2, and (7) the Canes Venatici 1, satellite galaxies. For each of those analysis of the probe findings called for a deeper exploration with the potential to find a variety of interesting resources or phenomenon for study, and a higher chance of finding sentient life thriving there.

After that, the rest of the mission called for exploring the next closest 13 unbound galaxies inclusive of their own satellites, (minus the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular galaxy that they already control).

Thus, the Department of Exploration had it's marching orders and plenty of work to do. It would take some time for these Voyager's to get all of their relevant different types of probes launched and into position for detailed data gathering, then analysis. After that Harry would look more seriously at the assignment of actual research stations and any manned expeditions. He is personally chomping at the bit to get his hands on the Draco Dwarf galaxy and it's five carbon stars.

The technical information about the galaxies has been moved to the A/N section due to complaints. I've left the names of the galaxies they will be exploring here so you at least have an idea of what I'll be talking about in later chapters. If you want to know 'what' is of interest in those galaxies you will also need to read that A/N to find out. It's either in context here in the body or it isn't. Can't please everyone. I think my next story will just be "Harry discovered a bunch of galaxies, thought they were interesting, conquered the ones he liked and then blew up the rest with his fancy ray gun. The End."

...

While it may seem that Harry spent all his time at Bastion or Atlantis working on those projects, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, he returned home every night. Home now being in a very nice private apartment within the Academy of Advanced Magic, so that he could return home to Hermione each night. There were exceptions, usually do to his official duties as Emperor and head of the government, but this was the rule. Stargates are like magic like that after all. Naturally they kept their Royal apartment at Atlantis too, but since the Academy is where Hermione really needed to be full-time nine months out of the year, Harry tried to be there with her as much as possible.

...

Meanwhile, Back at EarthGov. They have launched their six new Daedelus class battle-cruisers. Additionally, General George Hammond was replaced by newly promoted General Jack O'Neill as commander of the Space Operations Command (SOC).

The Daedelus and Odyssey were dispatched to patrol each of the Earth's two new star systems in Empire space, commanded by Colonel Stephen Caldwell and Colonel Paul Emerson, respectively. And the four battle cruisers assigned to home-world defense were assigned as: the Korolov, commanded by Colonel Boris Chekov; the Apollo, by Colonel Abe Ellis; the Sun Tzu, by Colonel Yao Wong; and the Neptune, by Colonel Hugo Humphrey.

Samantha Carter was promoted to Lt. Colonel and given command of the Prometheus, along with her new XO Major Cameron Mitchell, and new Science Officer Lt. Jennifer Hailey. Additionally, the ship was assigned two full SGC off-world teams to assist in their deep space exploration mission, to go where no man or woman has gone before (except all the ones that were enslaved by the Goa'uld and taken off-world ahead of them, and the Alterans, and any other sentient humanoids that evolved independently elsewhere).

Prometheus departed for a first tour for an Earth modern battle-cruiser to visit several friendly worlds to wave the flag as is said in military parlance, and for the crew to stretch its inter-stellar legs a bit with visits planned to Hasara, Javabli, the Tok'ra home-world, and on the way home a stop at Chulak because Sector Governor Teal'c expressed an interest in seeing the Tau'ri progress for himself. Since it had become well known throughout Empire space that almost all human life in the galaxy except for the ancient races were transplanted directly from Earth by the Goa'uld over a period of 10,000 years, after first being seeded there by the Ancient Alterans. In some ways, people throughout the galaxy were becoming curious about their ancestral home-world.

EarthGov got back to the Hasara trade office and told them not to continue with exporting Petroleum products, but to instead take a step back and replace that type of equipment and any future related type trade with the latest in modern fuel-cell powered equipment, since now Earth is starting to go in that direction since it had been perfected far sooner than originally thought thanks to the Alteran advancements. Other than that, the merchant fleet was a sound idea and if the current fleet of Al'kesh turns out not enough to fit the bill, they will build them ships suitable to that purpose.

As for the Asgard. They defeated the Replicator menace at the Replicator home-world, having turned it into a black-hole after luring and trapping them all there. Ayiana and Chief Geneticist Heimdall worked out the solution to the Asgard's cloning problems. New clones were scheduled to be created over the following year and the population transferred to them thereafter. Then the population will be able to reproduce normally again.

In the Aschen Sector. With Teal'c's leadership, the progress of resettling the innocent was at 25% and just about all resistance on Aschen Prime had been quelled. Likewise with the 10% worst of the population that were designated prisoners mostly rounded up and locked in the prison sector, it was now going smoothly. But it would still take a few more years to finish the job. Also, the Tok'ra Jacob/Selmak passed word back to the Empire that a healthy Egeria had spawned the first new Tok'ra larvae in many generations, and to thank them again for saving their race.

Back at Terra Legato and the Academy of Advanced Magic, they completed their second full year, with the 75 first term students who started in the partial first year set to graduate at the end of the next term. Harry announced that one of the ways that an novum Alteran graduate of the Academy would be identified separately from other citizens in the Empire is that as graduates they would all be entitled to the hereditary noble epithet Imperial Knight, and as such would be considered nobles of the Empire's Royal Court. This would also help everyone, including each other easily keep track of who was an Alteran and a Magical and who was not while out in the field, and would come with certifying insignia that one would wear on their uniform for those that serve in the military or government services.

Over time, if it should become useful, he may in the future appoint Baronets, Barons, Viscounts, Earls (Counts), and Marquesses among them. Also, in the event that the Empire finds it necessary to appoint non-Alteran's and non-Magical's to the Imperial Knighthood, they will be addressed as Herald's and Squires to signify the practical differences between them. Harry's purpose for all this wasn't racism or bigotry and hoped that these policies wouldn't lead to that sort of egregious elitism in the future, but there were fundamental differences between Alteran sic novum Alteran cum Magicals and mundane humans, and their would be 'some' amount of elitism among the Alteran's for practical reasons. It will be part of his job to make sure it doesn't get taken too far. It is not as though the Lanteans or the ancient Alterans in their own benevolence would hand out the keys to their greatest achievements and technology to anyone who was human, they also sequestered it to themselves. Harry is in fact in the process of slowly disseminating a lot of it, something they would never do, but doing it in a way he believes is targeted, controlled and manageable. Primarily the elite Imperial Guard would be the ones most to use these titles in public to distinguish their service, authority and jurisdiction as separate from regular human military or planetary security personnel (think Jedi Knight).

Beside all that, unless or until he changes his mind (which he might or might not ever do), he does fully intend to remain Emperor and begin a Royal line. If the universe doesn't like it they should've made sure he was born somewhere else besides England, where this way of life is bred into everyone. He had an opportunity to become King, to become Emperor. Who in their right mind would turn that down? In any case, to keep it to simple terms he still wants to be a good and benevolent Emperor, but a real one, nevertheless.

The titles and epithets of Duke or Prince and Princess, and above were reserved for the direct members of the royal family and succession, and for extended family or other exceptions that may be granted as well. For example. The Empresses' parents came to live permanently in a new family mansion at Terra Legato and began to use the titles, the Earl and Countess of Terra Legato, or Lord and Lady Terra Legato. As Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were not trained at the Academy as Knights but nevertheless are several of the few magicals who do not undergo training that will ever permanently reside within the Empire, they were given the honorary hereditary titles of Baronet (styled as Sir, same as a Knight).

Within the magical world, acceptance was keeping pace and the Academy was now averaging 150 new students per year (the maximum they currently want to take in). And so after this coming term wherein they will christen 90 new Knights (the current 75 students, and catch up with their first 15 friends who have already entered professions with them), they would soon begin to average closer to 150 new Knights graduating each year. Therefore, Harry began making inquiries around the campfire so to speak to see if anyone had idea on how they wanted to organize the Imperial Guard officially. A special temple or barracks on Terra Legato, or somewhere else, more spread out around the Empire, some other idea altogether? This part he hadn't figured out yet, and figured he could get some good ideas from the first group of people who would enter into that service. Also, keeping in mind that for some it would just be an honorific. Only the ones actively serving in the Imperial Guard as actual Knights would wear an insignia on a uniform and carry any Imperial authority along with the role. These would be his own guard, the guard for the royal family; as well as serve as elite operatives in special operations (again, think Jedi Knights, if they actually were sworn loyal to a government which they aren't but these are).

A/N:

-Technical Data on Galaxies removed from the body of the story and moved here:

After launching the Voyager's to their respective galaxies, each having arrived at their destination coordinates in less than a week, the following initial results came back for the priority targets:

(1) The Sagittarius Dwarf appeared to be an older galaxy with metal-poor stars and no neutron hydrogen gas. The galaxy is interesting for further study because Sag DEG has multiple stellar populations, ranging in age from the oldest globular clusters (almost as old as the universe itself) to trace populations as young as several hundred million years. It also exhibits an age-metallicity relationship, in that its old populations are metal poor while its youngest populations have super-solar abundances.-So, Harry decided he that in addition to the standard exploration, he would instruct the AI to find a suitable planet to establish a research outpost on to perform long-term study of age-metallicity relationship between it's oldest and youngest star formations. Pretty mundane stuff, but it could add to their understanding of such things.

(2) The Large Magellenic Cloud (LMC) is the fourth largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), Avalon, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33). Like many irregular galaxies, the LMC is rich in gas and dust, and it is currently undergoing vigorous star formation activity. It is home to the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star-forming region in the Local Group. The LMC is full of a wide range of galactic objects and phenomena that make it aptly known as an astronomical treasure-house, a great celestial laboratory for the study of the growth and evolution of the stars.-Thus, Harry decided to instruct the AI to find suitable locations to use this galaxy as a laboratory to study the growth and evolution of stars, as well as to potential discover and map new exotic cosmic particles that had not been discovered before. With such an active star-forming region, many discoveries could be made there. Additionally, and even more importantly, the initial scan of the galaxy indicated there was once a large space-faring civilization spread across this galaxy, but that much of those territories had seen obvious destruction, probably by war. There was at least one world in the galaxy that appeared to be giving off signals of advanced sentient life, therefore Harry instructed the AI to immediately attempt to gather intelligence on that world as well as all the others that it had detected previously had life.

(3) The Small Magellenic Cloud (SMC) contains several hundred million stars, and a large and active population of X-ray binaries. Recent star formation has led to a large population of massive stars and high-mass X-ray binaries which are the relics of the short-lived upper end of the initial mass function. The young stellar population and the majority of the known X-ray binaries are concentrated in the SMC's Bar. Thus, Harry decided to instruct the AI to find suitable locations to use set up research stations to study these X-ray binaries, but more importantly, the initial probe detected something their race had never encountered before but was well known to theoretical science, even on Earth, as an Alderson Disk, sometimes also referred to as a Ring world. This disk is a giant platter with a thickness of three thousand miles. A star rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer radius of is roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars. The massive disk has a larger mass than its star. The middle radius serves as a habitable zone and because the star remains stationary, there is no day/night cycle, only a perpetual twilight. Also, initial indications are that it is currently uninhabited. This requires investigation on every level and once it's deemed safe will probably get a manned exploration mission sent to it as soon as possible. There were many questions to be answered. Beyond all the other incredible ones include, some very advanced race had to build this, so where are they?

(4) The Draco Dwarf. This galaxy may potentially hold large amounts of dark matter and it is very interesting because it contains many red giant branch (RGB) stars; and most interesting scans detected five very rare carbon stars and four likely asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. This galaxy appears to have formed several billion years after the formation of the other satellite galaxies of the Avalon galaxy as its older stars are younger than 7 billion years. This makes it a relatively youthful galaxy when compared to Avalon, which is estimated to have formed 13.6 billion years ago, close to the origin of the universe. All of that needs to be researched. But, the best find of all are the five rare carbon stars. As soon as they determine it is safe to do so, the Empire is going to go claim all five of those star systems. These rare type stars have the potential to produce extraordinarily rare forms of stellar matter, several of which if we can find in abundance will be a rare and valuable resource for them to mine. These stars are characterized as having strong spectral features of carbon molecules and of barium (an s-process element). Also, there are several theoretical substances believed to possibly form and be emitted from these stars that can exhibit extraordinarily unusual and exotic properties. Some of those Harry could use to design some theoretically more advanced materials for a variety of interesting uses. This location will become a personal research project of his own. If he is right as to what he could discover and the amount of resource that might be available from five such stars, he could do some amazing things.

5\. The Carina Dwarf appears to have formed several billion years after the formation of the other satellite galaxies of the Milky Way as its older stars are younger than 7 billion years, this makes it a relatively youthful galaxy when compared to the Milky Way, which is estimated to have formed 13.6 billion years ago.-The main thing of interest they want to study about this galaxy is its age, the presence or development of earlier stages of matter or life as it pertains to that age and so forth. There might not be a lot to learn or discover in this galaxy, but it's another unique set of circumstance that can add data to their book of knowledge on stellar physics and phenomena.

6\. Leo T (as well Coma Berencis, and Segue 2) are dominated by dark matter, also has large a mount of neutral hydrogen indicating star formation should resume in this galaxy. Harry characterized all three of these galaxies into one study group because the will all take part in the same research program. A couple unique considerations though. It is unusual for a galaxy so dominated by dark matter to also have a large a mount of neutral hydrogen indicating star formation should resume in the galaxy. That needs to be studied. But, even more interesting at the moment is Segue 2 that appears to be practically bound together by dark matter there is so much of it. That should present a unique opportunity to study dark matter.

7\. Canes Venatici 1. This galaxy also contains a small fraction of younger (1–2 billion years old) more metal rich stars, which account for about 5% of its mass and 10% of its light. These younger stars are concentrated in the center of the galaxy and might be good resources for exotic particles of stellar matter, and another good place for a research station to study the long-term lifecycle of stellar physics.

...

This will round out the remainder of the Local Group of Galaxies, and include: (8) Triangulum/M33, (9) Phoenix Dwarf, (10) Andromeda, (11) NGC 3109, (12) Pisces Dwarf, (13) IC 10, (14) IC 1613, (15), Leo A, (16), Tucana Dwarf, (17) Cetus Dwarf, (18) Wold-Lundmark-Melotte, (19) Aquarius Dwarf, and (20) the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular. But, all of that would come in a later phase, once they establish the first stage of exploration in the first set of targets.


	14. Chapter 14

NOTICE: Major retconning of multi-verse sci-fi and fantasy themes ahead. Twisted, squished, stretched, and modified as I deem necessary to fit my story's plot and timelines. Since I do not want to give spoilers out of which cross-over's these will be in by listing them individually in the disclaimer, let it be known that I own nothing of any of these other characters or stories that you or anyone else might recognize from anyone else's published works. So, yeah, that covers everything. I own nothing. Hell I don't even own the plot and this story if it makes anyone feel better. It's not like it would be worth anything anyway, copyleft, copywrong, or go copyyourself.

Review Responses, if any, are at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 14

Timeframe: 2000-2001

During late summer 2000, Harry and his Imperial Knights decided that they would create a secret Citadel complex on the planet Natania. This was one of the first planets he conquered in his campaign against the Goa'uld that he simply abandoned due to lack of resources and not wanting to stretch his forces too thin. This planet was still considered a protected outpost and thus had a satellite defense grid, a stargate, and an old Goa'uld pyramid landing platform.

So, they officially created a new Para-military organization reporting directly to the Emperor called 'The Order of Imperial Knights,' or simply styled as 'The Order'. Since this group would serve as an elite fighting force with empire-wide investigative and police jurisdiction, as well as occasionally used for espionage, royal guards, and other special missions-only about 20% seemed interested in committing themselves to it. That percentage was actually rather high, probably owing to the belief, desire, or expectation that many students of the Academy had going in that they would play some elite military role. Therefore the first group to join The Order would be 15 Knights from the first graduating class.

After they graduated, Harry accompanied the 15 to Natania and assigned The Order their own personal Destiny class battle-ship, for its comprehensive resources as well as protection. With that, they would construct all the surface and underground structures for The Citadel, designed in such a way that it would be easy to symmetrically add more space as their membership grew. In addition to the Destiny, Harry requisitioned one of the moth-balled upgraded Ha'tak and assigned it to the Order, landing on their leftover pyramid landing platform. Thus they had a fully functioning pyramid in the center of their Citadel, along with a compliment of 500 HFR warriors, and an air-wing of Al'kesh and Gliders.

The Order would begin training to become ace pilots as well as begin to receive proper specialized combat training suitable to their new profession. To facilitate that he transferred several decorated and experienced pilots and soldiers from the human army, to serve as their drill instructors. These were the first to earn the honorary noble epithet Squire in service to the Order. Once they mastered piloting of these ships, Harry planned to allow the Order to design a one-man inter-stellar stealth fighter as well as light carrier and troop transports, unique to the Order's mission. Then he would have them custom made at his personal shipyards at Bastion.

With those plans kicked off, Harry returned to Bastion to oversee the analysis of the findings from the Voyager program and to make plans for some expeditions. Then he went home to Hermione at the Academy to go over some of those tentative plans and dates for several expeditions he personally wanted to lead and find out when she could get away to accompany him.

She was ready for that and had it all worked out. One of her recent graduates was tapped to permanently take over her duties as Professor of Alteran Mathematics. And she had Deputy Headmaster Finch-Fletchley all queued up to automatically take over for her running of the school, whenever she needed to leave. So, they started firming up dates.

At the same time, a squadron of Asgard battle cruisers with some of their scientists aboard had begun working with the Weasley twins and their staff to position the new trans-galactic hub space station in its new home in the void, to be followed by beginning installation of the hub itself.

Then Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard contacted Harry to inform him of a set of gifts the Asgard were about to bestow on the humans of Earth in honor of the Alteran's, especially Harry's, invaluable help in saving their world and their race.

Back at EarthGov, General O'Neill and General Landry, accompanied by the officers of the Prometheus led by Lt. Col. Carter, greeted a delegation from the Asgard who came to give the people of Earth great gifts of technology. At the instruction of Thor, on the behest of the Asgard Council, Commander Hermiod was to install Asgard shields, Asgard hyper-drives, Asgard navigation computers, Asgard communications, Asgard matter transporters, and a limited copy of an Asgard computer core with the knowledge of how to operate and reproduce those technologies, onto the Earth's battle-cruiser Prometheus. Then Commander Hermiod is to be assigned for one year to the Prometheus, as a liaison and specialist to aid them in understanding and working with the technology.

Hermiod informed them that these technologies are second only in the galaxy to the Alteran's of the Avalon Empire themselves, with whom the Asgard are Eternal friends and allies. When asked why the Asgard were doing this after having rebuffed their interests in trading for the same technology at Hasara not only one year earlier, Hermiod told them that the Council does not move quickly on decisions like this. However, as the Alteran's need nothing from the Asgard that they cannot already do equally as well or better, the Asgard chose to honor the Alteran's recent saving of their race, by doing the next best thing, uplifting the native population of their ancestral home-world.

To which General O'Neill had to ask.

"What do you mean? Are you saying that the Alteran's are also from Earth?" asked O'Neill.

"We were under the impression that they were from out there somewhere?" O'Neill continued, gesturing to the sky with his hands.

"Well, I think we just assumed that by now that the Alterans had explained most of their history to you. Perhaps I should just leave it at my previous comments and you can ask them some time. It's really not my place to say. I guess I can say though that you have been under their protection for longer than your race can remember and you as well as we do, owe them much." replied Hermiod.

Hermione accompanied Harry back to Bastion and they sat aboard the Destiny going over the Voyager results and planning what to do.

There were two he wanted to personally attend to right away, while the others he would delegate to other manned expeditions to begin the next stage of exploration or setting up research stations. Including the investigation of that Alderson Disk in the SMC. He wasn't sure he wanted to risk disturbing whoever built that, but at the same time, they need to study it-to at least add that knowledge to their own.

First, he wanted to go try to personally meet the race of advanced sentient beings they found on one of the worlds of the LMC, which apparently are the survivors of a devastating galactic war-or at least all that's left there. Then secondly, perhaps on the way back from that, he wanted to stop at the Draco Dwarf and lay claim to those carbon stars and begin setting up his own personal research station there.

So, for this first expedition they embarked aboard his flagship, the ACS-102 Javabli, flanked by one unit of three Destiny, just in case. He didn't want to look like a large invasion force, yet he didn't want to go there unprotected either. The trip took them about a week sticking to normal hyper-space engines. Along the way they passed hundreds of previously inhabited worlds that just looked like burned out ruins now.

As they approached the planet at sub-light speed they could see the evidence of battle scarring there too. Sensors detected only 600 million sapient life forms. The species was obviously very advanced scientifically and technologically, but they only detected several dozen of what might be called starships and nothing larger than a Destiny class.

As they pondered that, a hologram flickered into existence on the command deck with about a dozen beings of different sizes and colors ranging from five to eight feet tall, some were blue-skin, some were gray-skin, and the majority were pink or white skin.

"Greetings visitors, we are the Kree. We hope that you have not come to invade us since losing almost everything in the last war, we have almost nothing left to lose-and that won't bode well for you in either case. I am Bav-Tek, the leader of what remains of the Kree Resistance Front from our rebellion against the Shi'ar Empire." said Bav-Tek.

"Hello Bav-Tek, I am Harry Potter, Emperor of the Avalon Empire and this is my wife, Empress Hermione Potter. We come in peace. We are from another galaxy, the one this galaxy orbits as a matter of fact, and we have simply come on an expedition of peaceful exploration. Our deep space scans detected the remnants of many dead worlds that further investigation appeared to be from the devastation of a recent war. We discovered the life signs of an apparent surviving people here on this world and we came to see if we could offer our assistance." said Harry.

"Welcome then, in peace, Harry Potter of Avalon. We would be happy to exchange our tales of woe and accept your gracious offer of help. However I should warn you that you may want to reconsider if it would mean tempting our old enemies to your door." said Bav-Tek.

"Thank you Bav-Tek. Let us talk then and learn what the circumstances are and if it is indeed possible for us to help you. May we beam down to your world to visit or would you prefer to beam up to our ship to meet here?" asked Harry.

"We will beam up to your ship since our atmosphere would not be suitable to you and we are already treated to be able to breath in your type of atmosphere for brief periods. If you would do the honors?" replied Bav-Tek.

So, Harry, Hermione and a significant yet hopefully non-threatening guard detail met in the Javabli's large conference room where he had the Kree beamed up to.

They exchanged greetings and a few wary eyes from one or another of the Kree. Then Bav-Tek gave a brief introduction and history of their people and their former Empire, and Harry returned the favor, keeping things very high level, not revealing much strategic information. The result was that the Kree concluded that this Empire was nearly as powerful as they once were at their peak. So, they shared a bit more and offered some suggestions.

Bav-Tek explained with the help of a couple other members of his party that the Kree were organized like a military dictatorship at the moment with him as their leader. They once were a great empire that spanned the LMC with over 30 billion people on a thousand worlds, but for thousands of years and war after war with a race from another galaxy called the Skrull and another from yet another galaxy called the Shi'ar, as well as one unfavorable entanglement after another with a variety of cosmic powers-this was all that was left of them and for once they were rebuilding slowly because they tire of the never-ending struggle of war.

When Harry pressed for more details as to what happened and more information about those other races, they told him that in the most recent war, the Shi'ar under their former Emperor Vulcan, destroyed over 98% of their population with something called a nega-bomb. And that meanwhile their other ancient on again off again enemy, the Skrull, a species of shape shifters, had suffered a similar recent defeat by another cosmic power called 'Annihilus,' then just as they started to recover from that were decimated by yet another cosmic power called 'The Builders' that also left them retreated to one remaining world they same as they had, the planet Tarnax II in the Andromeda galaxy, with a surviving population of only 900 million.

As Bav-Tek told his story Harry privately thought, 'holy crap, time to increase our weapons design and ship-building programs; and exactly what is a cosmic power anyway?', meanwhile Bav-Tek continued his tale.

Then it turned out that the Shi'ar Empire that had spanned tens of thousands of worlds and races across three galaxies (the NGC 3109 plus its satellites Sextans A and the Antlia Dwarf), also recently came to and end. However, unlike the end of the Kree and the Skrull empires, the bulk of the Shi'ar member worlds survived intact. It was just their imperial military and the royal family that was deposed, whom retreated to their home-world. The remaining former Empire worlds were now simply free independent worlds, finally free from the Shi'ar domination. Those normally operated like an economic cooperative when they weren't fighting extra galactic wars anyway, so they had more or less returned to that state without an Empire subduing them.

See A/N if you need more explanation of the retconning going on, otherwise that is not in context for Harry's POV.

Thus Harry and Hermione spent some time in the LMC visiting with the Kree and learning a little more about their species and coming to understand more about what they meant when they referred to 'cosmic powers'. He thought it was strange that in none of his Ascended memories did he have any knowledge of those beings. The Alterans must have simply not encountered them before. That seemed very plausible because from the sound of it, beings with those kind of powers and apparently with attitudes ranging from ravenous to evil to simply dismissive, would have left their mark on Avalon or Pegasus or even their original home galaxy, had they been there. So, this was another range of potential threats that Harry would begin to obsess with learning more about and dealing with, while trying not to provoke them or encounter them at all if he could help it. They informed him that they wouldn't expect to see any of them any time soon, as their presence seems to come and go at wide intervals. At the same time, he knew that helping these people and becoming involved in their galaxies might lead to just that happening, but he felt driven to try to expand at least their body of knowledge and help people where he could. Oh why oh why did he have to develop a people saving thing, as Hermione liked to put it.

At the suggestion and request of the Kree, the Kree delegation boarded the Javabli, which they were extraordinarily impressed with by the way; as well as how far the Alterans traced themselves back, over 60,000,000 years. They began comparing them to the Celestials. minus the 2,000 foot height of course. Harry thought that was quite a stretch anyway from the little they told him so far about the power of individual Celestials, but at least these newly discovered races would hold a certain amount of awe for them, that can only help them keep the peace in the long run. One thing that bothered him though is that indications were that the Celestials were a younger race than the Alterans, but themselves were humanoid if you don't account for their height. And that they are reported to have experimented on and seeded human life as well, possibly as recently as 1 million years ago even visiting Earth, which would put them there long after the Alterans departed with Atlantis but well before the refugee Lanteans returned. So, Harry began to wonder if the Celestials themselves were somehow some old Alteran genetic experiment gone wrong combined with other failed or partially successful efforts to Ascend. The whole thing was starting to give him shivers. Not to mention their story of Galactus who was supposedly given life at the moment the universe was created through the process that ended the previous universe. Seriously, he thought, WTF?!

Anyway, the Kree gave Harry directions to the new Skrull home-world in Andromeda, in order for him to meet them and have a discussion with them. Harry had offered to host a permanent peace conference between their races so that they might once again be friends or at least trade partners, which they had been once or twice across the eons. It seemed that both of these races could do well at this point in the recovery from their other devastating wars if they could help each other at this point in their lives, and possibly build a lasting peace between them.

So it was that Harry and Hermione found themselves in orbit of Tarnax II having much the same introductory conversations with the Skrull leaders as they had with the Kree. They were led by a new leader who had once upon a time been imprisoned for his pacifism, named Dezan. Harry let them know that they were given directions there by a delegation from the Kree that wanted the Avalon Empire to host a permanent peace conference between the two of them, so they could end the possibility of future hostilities and aid each other in rebuilding their civilizations.

Eventually, after having spent some time at Tarnax II, the Avalon Empire first agreed to open trade relations with the Kree in the LMC and the Skrull in Andromeda. Therefore to properly host a permanent peace conference between them, Harry called in Lya of the Nox to broker it, since he had conflicts of interest already with the beginning of new trade agreements with both parties. The conclusion was that they reached a permanent peace between them and mutually decided to join the Avalon Empire as part of it's growing protectorate. Thus, effectively adding the otherwise most powerful worlds remaining in Andromeda and LMC galaxies to Harry's Empire, and with the AE's help would begin to re-build colonies and expand the Avalon Empire under their flags as autonomous governments, throughout their respective galaxies. Not bad for a couple months work. Especially since he hadn't even planned to explore any of the other unbound galaxies yet this year. But, you go's where the river takes ya.

The Kree and Skrulls were both open to Alteran influence because of their peaceful ways and since their scientific and technological might equaled and in some areas surpassed their own when they were each at their peaks respectively. And they still had much to bring to the table as well since they each would be able to increase Avalon's understanding of the meta-cosmic and meta-physical, owing to their origins, history, and past exploitations by beings ranging from the Celestials, to Galactus, and many in between. They marveled at how the Avalonian's never encountered or dc'd any of the cosmic powers before and thought privately, how lucky they had been.

Harry and Hermione began the journey back to Avalon, leaving a Destiny class as a guardian and stargate access point, over each of the Skrull's and Kree's home-worlds, with instructions to their Captains to assist them with re-building efforts. Beginning with constructing and placing a standard satellite defense grid over both planets; and he said that when he gets back to Avalon he will dispatch more ships to bring each detachment up to a full standard unit. In the meantime, in the spirit of cooperation and to assist the Avalon Empire coming up to speed with both the Kree and Skrull and all of their combined and separate history, they each dispatched three personnel to return with Harry to Avalon aboard the Javabli. For the Kree, this also consisted of one each of their three sub-genus (blue, gray, pink) because Harry wanted to study their differences and the Kree didn't seem to mind that, they were rather used to genetic shenanigans anyway, not that it usually worked out in their favor in the long run.

The Skrull that were sent were all from their Deviant sub-genus, as all of the Dire-Wraith had been driven out of the galaxy long ago. But, also with their leadership's permission they would study their amazing shape-shifting abilities. As far as the Empire itself expanding into those two galaxies with colonies of their own, he thought he should hold off on that for a while until he figured out if doing so would provoke the attention of the cosmic powers that like to play with the Skrull and the Kree so much. For now he would just help them re-establish their own colonies and return some life to their galaxies.

On the way back through Andromeda en-route to the edge of the galaxy nearest the direction of Avalon, the Javabli detected what would otherwise appear to an Alteran as a city-ship, but one that happened to be part of a large asteroid. It was being protected by shields but from what the sensors could make out, appeared to be leaking some form of exotic radiation from the surface which was being shielded by lead. Harry wondered if there were people alive in that city and how they were faring with all that radiation if there were any leaks, so notwithstanding all the other reasons to investigate this, he modified course to see if they needed help.

Still unsure that he could believe his eyes, Harry navigated the Javabli into station keeping with the asteroid-city and at that close range the sensors could penetrate the shield enough to sense over 6 million living people. With that in mind he had the computers scan for what would most likely be a government complex with their leaders. Finally finding what he was looking for he and Hermione appeared amidst them as holograms.

There they met the leaders of Argo City, including the head of the Science Guild Alura Zor-El nee In-Zee and her husband Zor-El. They learned about the destruction of their home-world Krypton and that they were the only survivors as far as they knew, except for possibly one other baby boy Kal-El that was sent by Zor-El's brother Jor-El to find sanctuary on Earth.

At the mention of Earth, Harry and Hermione's ears perked up and they told them that they are originally from Earth themselves and would try to find their nephew for them when they get back. That got them back onto the real business of the city and Harry offered and they accepted for him to tow their city through hyper-space back to the Avalon galaxy. Wherein he would find them another planet with a red sun appropriate to their ecosystem deep within his Empire's protected territory where they could 'land' Argo city whole, and the Empire would help them to re-build their civilization.

In the meantime, Harry comm'd Atlantis and sent for it to rendezvous with him and Argo City at the edge of the Andromeda galaxy. It would take Atlantis's powerful tractor beams and city-size inter-galactic hyper-drives to actually tow Argo city through hyper-space. Plus, it would give him the opportunity to show these Kryptonians what a proper city-ship is meant to look like. Goodness, you're not supposed to bring your planet's crust with you. While they waited for that, Harry took the opportunity to use the resources of the Javabli to shore up their lead lining protecting the people from radiation, which had in fact been leaking all over the place for some time. So, he also had emergency medical holograms all over the place treating the Kryptonians for radiation poisoning. They were lucky that Harry found them when he did. In a couple more months or at most a year, large segments of their population would've grown so ill they would've begun dying off. While the Kryptonians were quite advanced, they fell behind the Alterans in quite a number of areas, but they were impressive for the relative young age of their race.

When Atlantis arrived and they began the towing process, Zor-El and Alura-El talked Harry and Hermione into taking their teenage daughter, Kara-El back to Earth with them, so that she could be part of finding her baby cousin. Which they all found amusing since Kara was born a long time after Kal-El, but due to time-distortions of relativistic travel, Kal-El would've arrived on Earth as a baby still, but since then about 14 years on Earth had passed, so they will be much closer in age now, with Kara being 17. Even though he was born 20 years before she was. So, who was who's baby cousin was going to be a good joke between them.

See the A/N if the temporal mechanics of the previous three sentence's is bothering you.

After all that, finally Harry and Hermione returned home, with Empire engineers finishing the job of getting Argo City settled in to a prime location on their new world, named New Krypton. New Krypton accepted membership in the Avalon Empire because they had nothing else going for it. So, Harry assigned a unit of Destiny battleships and a satellite defense network to protect the planet and bring them into the fold. When the Argosians saw that Harry and Hermione was in the company of Skrulls and Kree they became very wary. Hermione noticed and asked what was wrong and both the Skrull and Kree admitted that in a dark period of their past, they both at one time or another, even the Shi'ar had at one time, tried to conquer the Kryptonians, to add their military strength and technology to their own. There were few worlds that ever stood up to the might of any one of the three big Empires over the course of the past million years, but the Kryptonians were one of them, probably the most powerful of all of them. The Argosians puffed up in pride to hear their old enemies say such things. And for their parts, the Skrull and Kree representatives expressed true remorse for the loss of their home-world and the death of so many of their people. And for the Argosians side they expressed similar remorse for the Kree and Skrulls almost being annihilated too. They all shook hands or did whatever their races did in equivalent fashion and agreed to put the past behind them, let bygones be bygones. They all thanked the Avalon Empire for stepping up to help all three of their races, and would work together going forward to preserve the memories and achievements of their galaxies. They departed with the knowledge that help would also come from the Kree and the Skrull to help New Krypton re-build and for the Argosians part, they said when they were strong enough, they would return the favor. The sentiment between these three formerly warring races was so uplifting, Hermione wanted to cry. As much as some of these new strange ideas frightened her, particularly these still as of yet non descript cosmic powers, she was glad that they are able to reach out and help so many people.

Hermione wanted to be around for the start of the Fall term at the Academy and now she and Harry had a teenage girl (really only four years younger than Harry though) to take care of and to help to find her nephew. Fortunately since she did come along, it would be easy for ships scanners to lock onto the same life sign pattern of Kara's to find Kal's. They were also interested to witness some of these incredible abilities that Alura-El claimed that Kara and other Kryptonians would possess while residing on Earth or any other planet with a yellow star. So, they had one more thing to study. The differences in Kryptonians that live on a planet influenced by a red star like the one they evolved with, versus their yellow one. And then, what about for planets with other stars if that is going to be the case? Harry felt like he certainly had encountered some new and strange phenomenon. It seemed to be making the effort to explore worthwhile. At some point he intended to visit again on New Krypton to have Alura-El explain more about this Phantom Zone she mentioned that they use as a prison.

Before continuing on to his next task, Harry made a note in his personal log to set a time early next year to travel to the NGC 3109 galaxy to meet these M'Kraan that the Kree told him about that defeated the Shi'ar and effectively disbanded it by destroying their royal family and military. The Kree and the Skrull suggested they might be open to friendly relations and even trade, and that through them the AE might gain considerable influence with the many thousands of free worlds in those three galaxies who now look up to them as an unofficial Elder race for their feat.

Then after getting Hermione settled in back at the Academy and finding appropriate lodgings for the three Kree and the three Skrull at Eskal, where he wanted to initially sequester after a fashion any powerful unknown alien beings, even if they seemed to be allies. He didn't know enough about them yet and surrounded by their military HQ, they should be under enough watch. He apologized that he could not stay with them all the time but promised he would make it a point to visit often so they could help him personally learn more about their cultures. In the meantime, they all agreed to work in a special research and training facility he had the Grand Admiral set up for him both to supervise them in one place, as well as give them a chance to mutually exchange useful information. From the Empire, they were getting access to Alteran training simulators for language, art, culture, history, mathematics, and basic (non-military) science and technology; whilst the Skrull and Kree would work on programming and copying their relevant memories of the same for their races into the training center's computers so that the Alteran's could learn as much from them. This would be a good project to keep them occupied for awhile until he could free up Ayiana and turn her lose on them to study their physiology and genetics.

So then, Harry scanned the Earth looking for a genetic cousin (literally) of Kara's and found one, in a little town called Smallville, in Kansas, of the USA. Thus, they made plans to one day soon dress as ordinary American civilians and make a visit to Martha and Jonathan Kent to meet their adopted son Clark.

A/N:

-One overall note to the massive retconning going on. Ignore anything you think you know about these races 'history' or 'continuity' with other genre's on Earth (such as past Skrull invasions, interactions with the Fantastic Four, whatever and etc.). In my story those never happened and they are learning of and meeting Earth humans for the first time, unless I say so. I might use a couple of those circumstances if they fit for me and don't screw up the 'continuity' of my story. Otherwise no. If it helps, you can think of these retconned AU's for these other fictional races as what might have happened in their own little worlds, if they never had any prior contact with Earth (as many of them did have in their canon stories).

-Shi'ar Empire retconned: Briefly. The Scy'ar Tal who were sworn to destroy the Shi'ar, took advantage of the civil war between Vulcan and the dethroned Lilandra. Unlike in canon, Vulcan never figured out how to de power the Eldest, the Scy'ar regrouped and saved the Finality, eventually defeating the Shi'ar Empire, thus reclaiming the M'Krann Crystal which was originally their ancient responsibility as guardians to preserve and protect. They reclaimed their world and retook their name and declared the Shi'ar Empire disbanded... freeing tens of thousands of worlds and races across three galaxies that had been subdued and made to serve the Sh'iar. Additionally I reduced the scale of their empire (number of worlds) by a factor of 10 to fit my storyline. Which had mainly been an economic cooperative when they weren't fighting extra galactic wars. The surviving Sh'iar retreated to their original home-world, Aerie- which no one knew the location of.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Timeframe: Fall 2001-Summer 2002

The amount of large programs and special projects had grown so much that finally Harry decided to have a new HFR personal assistant named Adam assigned to him that could screen all his incoming communications and keep track of everything for him, even his compartmented secrets. Therefore he could continue to remain actively involved in his pet projects without beginning to drop the ball on some things.

When Hermione asked him why he named his assistant Adam, he said it is because he is likely to be the first of many.

.

.

As he finished breakfast and got ready for another day of helping Kara train her powers in order to safely make the visit to the Kent's, he pondered the latest status report from Adam.

The Citadel for the Imperial Knights was completed and the Knights had comfortably settled into a good training regimen and received 30 new members in the Fall, bringing the total Knights to 45. He also learned that aside from the Knights at the Citadel and an equivalent number who have settled in Terra Legato, most of the remaining 135 who had graduated thus far were taking up officer positions in the Fleet, as well as scientific positions at Atlantis, and a variety of other government administrative positions among several of the major populated worlds such as Javabli, et al. and were learning the practical side of how the government runs as well as the depth and breadth of the culture of the human population of the Empire. His hope was that eventually some of those who went to the Fleet will be move up the ranks rapidly so that some of his people could begin taking on senior leadership positions including serving as ship captains and hopefully ultimately he hoped to have an novum Alteran gain enough experience to become Grand Admiral. Of course that would be a long way off. In the near term he would have to settle with getting some of those officers onto the Admiral's staff as soon as they get some experience under their belts.

Sector Governor Teal'c reported that they are fully 50% complete the emigration program and that results so far indicate after a period of immersion into the wider culture, history, and laws of the Empire that the majority of the people were grateful and appreciative of the Empire's handling of their civilization considering what their leaders had been guilty of for centuries.

Hasara reported that they inked a trade agreement with EarthGov and the Tok'ra for some experimental mutual exchange of public satellite broadcast news and entertainment from each culture into the others. It was expected that the Empire and the Tok'ra would benefit more from this early on since Earth culture already had a long and rich history and experience with it, while the other partners were just getting started.

The Avalon colonization program reported completion of the construction of the moon infrastructure, staffing, and the construction of the first one hundred of ten thousand planned colony ships. So that missions to new previously unsettled worlds would begin that year on schedule. The program had generated a great swell of patriotism on Javabli and throughout the Empire as the population had all but fallen in love with the rule and governance of their new Emperor and were ecstatic about becoming pioneers in the great expansion of the Empire and their own effective uplifting to the Alteran level of science and culture in the formation of their new cities. These were the novum Alteran sans Magicals. But they would begin to become equals in all other respects except their lack of the physiological gifts of the Alterans.

EarthGov finished mapping all four of their new planets within their two extra-solar systems and learned enough that they decided to give a go to colonizing each of them. Hermiod volunteered to help them use some of the new science and technology they received to partially terraform them first. They weren't going to do anything about the gravity, people who lived on or visited each planet would just wear a special device clipped on their belts as compensators. As for the rest they would be able to get the atmosphere and oxygen content within an acceptable 95% of Earth's, and the water there was fine, although there was some slightly different mineral compositions in their salt waters. So, Prometheus was spending most of its time working on the industrial and logistical steps in that colonization effort than it was on any real new exploration at the moment. They could only grow and expand extra-planetary from Earth at a certain pace anyway. This space program while bringing most of the new innovation and excitement to the world is still just a fraction of their economy and budget.

Councilor Ayiana had returned to Atlantis, having finished supervising the Asgard's clone development and the first several dozen transfers. The mission was considered a success so the Asgard could take it from there. She was eager to come home and begin studying these new races that Harry told her about. Meanwhile she also wanted to return to begin research to see if she could find cures for the novum Alteran squib, lycanthropy, and vampirism problems. They each seemed like zpe imbalanced genetic disorders to her way of thinking. Harry sent her a message that he also had another possible special project he wanted to discuss with her.

Thor contacted Harry to let him know that he was dispatching a unit of three Beliskner battle cruisers and an industrial ship to accompany the Empire's units providing defense and assistance to each of the Kree and Skrull home-worlds. And asked if Harry would have one of his diplomatic teams accompany them to make introductions. Harry was glad he thought to keep the Asgard updated with his exploration efforts, they certainly were eager to help out anywhere they could, and he was glad for all the help they could get.

Harry was also sitting on a request from EarthGov General O'Neill, who asked for a meeting with Harry at his convenience. Earth would like to know more about the history, origins, and culture of the Alterans. Thor warned Harry that Hermiod had warned him that call might be coming. He would try to make time for that soon. Circumstances had evolved far enough along now that he felt he could put all his cards on the table. How he would handle the wizarding worlds secret he would have to treat delicately.

With good reports on what they were learning from the Kree and Skrull and all the other new influx of alien civilizations entering the Empire and frankly expecting more to come, Harry decided to create an 'Extra-Galactic Think Tank' in a new special facility he would have built for this purpose on Eskal, with accommodations for all the representatives who would participate and labs for their collaborative work. He would invite from among his member and allied worlds several cultural and scientific experts of each to update, revise, experiment with, and add to the Empire's already vast body of knowledge as well as assign an cumulative number of his novum Alterans to the project. The ultimate objective would be that with this collaboration they might make new discoveries and make new breakthroughs faster. The ultimate aim of this project would be assimilating in the Alteran body of knowledge as fast as they can any new advanced science, technology, or applications of them from the other races they take under their wing. He was certain that there were some unique pieces of Kryptonian, Skrull, and Kree science that they could learn to take advantage of immediately.

...

Finally, Harry was all caught up with Empire major events that required his immediate attention and he and Hermione, who took time off to help him with this, met again with Kara who was staying with Hermione's parents temporarily.

They had spent the last two weeks with Kara in Terra Legato helping her experiment safely with her Kryptonian yellow-sun super-powers. As it was her first time in a yellow-sun, it took her several days to absorb enough yellow solar radiation to exhibit any of the abilities. It took them one day to realize they should spend most of the time with her top-side at first so that she would get a meaningful amount of exposure in the first place.

According to Alura-El, the abilities she should develop include: a near invulnerability and imperviousness to physical damage, super-strength, the ability to fly, super speed, super senses including telescopic, microscopic, x-ray, and heat vision, and could see across the full electromagnetic spectrum; super-hearing on any wavelength at great distances, super-stamina, healing factor and regeneration, super-breath, and a sonic boom shout. However, if she were to say fly into space and go so far as to leave the influence of the solar energy of the yellow-star, she would weaken and may die in space before she could return to regain enough energy to regenerate herself. Worse, if she were to do so and fly into the influence of a red star it would sap all of her abilities, making her instantly vulnerable to the vacuum of space.

As Alura-El explained it. The reason for these abilities is because the main difference between ordinary humans and Kryptonians is their ability (and requirement) to absorb and metabolize solar energy, not just exhibit the side effects of the radiation or the minor benefits of it that humans get. When Harry asked why they didn't move their entire civilization to a world with a white-yellow star, she said that their people had evolved from the beginning on a planet with a red star and it creates an ecosystem they are used to. One main thing is that Kryptonians can usually only reproduce while living under the effects of a red star. So, while they are aware they can possess those abilities, even more powerful ones under the influence of the younger green-blue stars, they prefer to live as they always have. Plus, the effects are only temporarily and transitory unless they stay under the influence of the other star and the longer they stay there the more difficult it is for them to make a healthy transition back to life under a red star. Under a red star they have no special abilities, there they are just like any other normal human except for one other genetic trait which is that they all have eidetic memory. She also said that Kryptonians would die under the influence of a Black Dwarf star, but fortunately those are only so far theoretical.

Harry asked her what would happen to Kal-El then, could he ever come to Argos and live among his people or even visit? And what about the effects to Kara from visiting Earth? Alura-El told him that for Kal-El since he had grown up on Earth as a baby, he would have some issues. If he went to New Krypton or to any planet with a red-star., he would lose his abilities immediately of course, but the transition will cause him much pain and discomfort. If he intended to stay for a long time or permanently he would have to endure a long course of treatment for the ordinary radiation sickness of the red star energy and from the crust/soil that has been influenced by it. It would be difficult and he would probably survive the transition, but the doctors would strongly recommend he not return to a yellow-star world at all after that. As for Kara or any of them, they can go back and forth intermittently as long as they don't stay under the influence of the yellow star for too long a period at one go. The Kryptonian body unlike other humans needs to absorb solar energy in order to live. And the effects of one type versus another, then back to the other, then back again, over and over, would eventually put a strain on any of them. At Kara's age she would be fine for up to a year or less but then must come back to New Krypton for at least another year and she would have a brief mild transition when she gets back, sort of like having a bad seasonal allergy attack that would hit her respiratory system hard that would last a week. She told Harry that Kara understood that risk and wanted the opportunity to get to know her cousin and to teach him of their world.

...

They could have spent much longer helping Kara experiment with her powers but she was chomping at the bit to get to see her baby cousin. Harry and Hermione had to explain several times that they needed to make sure she is safe and can at least keep her abilities under control enough not to accidentally hurt people just by shaking their hand, frying someone's brain and burning out their optic nerves just by glaring at them in frustration, or cause major property damage from sneezing or something. Impatient teenagers. Hermione had to remind Harry that it wasn't as though he slowed down or took a break from conquering the galaxy when he was a teenager. She had him there.

During the course of this and both as a test to reassure himself and to make sure that she and the other Kryptonians don't get too cocky about their abilities. Harry and Hermione demonstrated how through wandless magic, they could stop her cold in a number of different ways. It turned out that these abilities of the Kryptonians did not afford them one iota of immunity to the effects of magic or channeled zpe. Her only real defense to it would be if she thought it might be coming, she could fly or super-speed herself out of range before the magic could be directed at her. In one respect while that did knock her ego down a peg, it also emboldened her to convince them that since they could make sure she doesn't accidentally hurt anybody, that they could get started on seeing Kal now. She had them there, so...

...

Knock, knock, knock...

Harry, Hermione, and Kara stood outside of the Kent's at their front door and heard yelling from inside the house.

"Clark, will you get the door please!" yelled Martha Kent.

"Sure, mom." Clark replied.

...

"Hello. What can I do for you?" asked Clark, politely.

Kara got a big grin on her face, and Hermione just touched her arm to remind her to let Harry make the introductions first.

"Hi, my name is Harry Potter. This is my wife Hermione. And this young lady Kara, a friend of ours. We were hoping to have a word with your parents if they are around?" said Harry.

"Sure. Let me get my mom. Dad isn't here right now. But I'll let her know. Why don't you come in and make yourself comfortable here in the living room. By the way, my name is Clark." Clark said.

"Nice to meet you Clark. Thank you." replied Harry.

The three took a seat in the living room and waited for Clark to return with his mother.

Martha entered the room and the three stood to greet her.

"Oh, none of that. That's fine. I'm Martha Kent. Clark said you wanted to speak to me and Jonathan about something? I'm sorry but Jonathan isn't home right now. Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Martha.

Harry reintroduced the three of them and said, "Yes, ma'am, thank you. First I have a little story to tell you for background and then you'll begin to understand why we've come I think. I don't know if you will recognize me, but have you seen in the news about the Avalon Empire and all the new business with space exploration and meeting alien races that has been going on the past few years?" said Harry.

"Oh, yes. It's all very fascinating. Came as quite a shock I'll tell you. Probably more that the government told us anything about it more than believing it. Hmm. I guess now that I think about it I do think I recognize you but, I don't remember why." said Martha.

"That's okay, ma'am. I'm not a regular in your news or anything. I just know they have aired pictures of me a few times. I just want you to be able to believe I am who I say I am when I tell you. I go by another name on official business. Harry is just part of my first name. I am Harry Enki Janus Potter, ma'am. Emperor of the Avalon Empire." said Harry.

Martha stood up suddenly, which startled Clark. Harry and Hermione seemed to be ready for it. Kara was just sitting there looking bemused.

"Oh, my. Emperor. My goodness. Yes, that is why I recognize you. Why would you come all the way here to visit us? What can we do for you?" risking a bit of a nervous glance to her son Clark.

"It's okay, ma'am. It's nothing bad. Actually quite good I think. And you can not worry about that Emperor business. I came today simply as a friend." said Harry.

"You see, being from where we're from, we've actually come into knowledge of where your son Clark is really from." started Harry.

Martha and Clark began to look agitated like they were worried now, but Martha sat back down.

"It's okay, really. First, your secret is safe with us, don't worry about that. We've actually come to bring some good news to you and something else." said Harry.

"Clark, I don't know how much you know about your origins but I'm sure that by now you've discovered your different abilities. Do you understand that you are not originally from here?" asked Harry.

"Yes, sir. I do. But, I don't know much about where I come from, only that my mom and dad confirmed for me what I suspected. And they told me a little story of how they found me as a baby and adopted me. You're not going to take me away are you?" asked Clark.

"Oh, no. Not at all." replied Harry and then Martha and Clark both seemed to relax a bit.

"Actually, depending on how much you know or didn't know. One thing I came to do was just to tell you more about where you've come from. But, there is a lot more to it than that. So, let me tell you the story as I know it." said Harry.

"Now, first you know about the Empire I come from correct, or at least that we live on other worlds out there in the galaxy?" said Harry, pointing to the heavens.

He paused to see both of them nod their heads.

"Okay, so one of the things we do on occasion is explore new galaxies and new worlds ourselves. While we are quite advanced, there is still quite a lot of new places for even us to explore and to learn. So, in the course of doing this we were on an expedition to a neighboring galaxy called Andromeda. And during our return trip to this galaxy, we discovered a floating city drifting through space on a heading for the edge of their galaxy, protected by a mighty shield dome." continued Harry.

"So, we stopped to see if we could offer them aid. We found out that the people who live on this floating city are other members of your own race, from the planet Krypton. You see there is a whole long story about a cataclysm that happened on your home planet which caused your parents to send you to Earth as a baby, to find sanctuary and to save your life, to get you off of their doomed planet. It turned out by some last minute technological marvel and quite a bit of luck I imagine that when the people of Argos city on Krypton built that big shield at the last minute, it protected them and when the planet's core exploded destroying the rest of the planet, it sent the entire section of crust the city was on with them hurtling into space, and effectively saving them. Except that they were essentially floating through space on a big rock on a heading to the middle of nowhere with rapidly depleting resources. So, we used some of our advanced technology and we towed their entire city back to this galaxy through hyper-space and we found them a new planet to settle on with a red-star that was a close match to their original one and landed them there." continued Harry.

"They are now in the middle of trying to re-build the Krypton civilization. They ought to do well all other things considered, since they have the scientific and industrial resources of what had been the largest city on Krypton and over 6 million survivors. We are doing all we can to help them along, especially with the other resources they need until they can get back on their own feet." continued Harry.

"But, the story continues to get more interesting. While we were there, we happened to meet a couple who happen to be your aunt and uncle, now I will cut my part of this story short and let your cousin Kara here tell you the rest as I know she has been chomping at the bit to meet you and tell you all about your home world and to let you know that unlike how you might have thought, you are not alone in the universe. It was a close call to be sure, but you are not the last of your kind as you may have thought. Kara?..." concluded Harry.

Kara almost literally exploded over to Clark and threw her arms around him and said, "I'm so happy that we found you baby cousin. I hope you'll let us get a chance to know each other and let me tell you all about our people." said Kara.

Clark returned the hug with a blush and not knowing what to say or do. Still stunned from the story in the first place, he just said. "S.. S.. Sure. I'd love to."

"Oh my goodness. Is this all true? So, I'm a Kryptonian from Krypton and I really am an alien. Do you have super-powers too? Mine are weird, they don't work right all the time." said Clark.

Martha interrupted and said, "Clark honey, why don't you take Kara and show her around and get to know her? I think that is a wonderful idea. I would like to speak with the Potter's a little bit more I think."

"Sure mom, thanks." said Clark and he and Kara left through the back-door for the grand tour.

Then Martha interrogated Harry and Hermione a little bit more about if they were sure his relatives weren't just going to take him away and if this will change anything. They explained that as far as they were concerned it changed nothing. Other than the fact that Clark, who's Kryptonian name they explained is Kal-El, will get to know his cousin and hopefully in time some of his other relatives and native people. There were medical issues in regard to going back and forth between their planets, especially for Clark since he was raised on Earth since a baby, and his people normally live under a red-star, not a yellow-star like Earths. It is that main difference that gives Clark his special abilities while on Earth, but at the same time, because he was raised here all that time, it would be difficult for him to go there, especially if he meant to do so permanently. It would be up to Clark someday if he wanted to try but no one would try to force him. It is far easier for mature Kryptonians who grew up there under a red-star, like Kara, to visit here for periods of time up to a year without major complications when they return home. So, that is why Kara came. She hoped to spend time here with him at least until she has to go back.

They also explained that they have been studying the phenomenon of these special abilities Kryptonians have under their yellow-star and Kara has been training with them for two weeks to learn some safety. She still had a long way to go too, but if Martha and Jonathan let them, they and primarily Kara, could help him learn how to cope with and adjust to those new abilities. They explained a layman's version of what they learned so far about his powers and the nature of them from Clark's aunt Alura-El, and his uncle Zor-El (Clark's biological father Jor-El's brother). And explained that while Clark is still in adolescence and still maturing, that some of his abilities would not have manifest themselves yet and when they do it will be difficult for him for awhile and that was something else Kara could help him with.

So, they continued to talk and Martha learned more about Clark's people, as well as what Harry really does out there in space running an Empire and what that is all about. It wasn't something that was discussed in detail in their news from the government, just high level bits and pieces. She was surprised after hearing all of that, that Harry and Hermione took the time out of their busy lives just to help this one boy and his family. Harry explained he would do that anyway, but it's far more than that, he's also helping their entire civilization at this point and Hermione parroted her normal quip about Harry having a people saving thing. To which Martha said, well that can only be a good thing then. If she had to know there was an Emperor of a vast space Empire out there, she was glad to know he was such a nice guy. Which made Harry blush. He blamed Hermione for that whole turn of conversation. Martha asked them to stay for dinner and then could repeat some of that story for Jonathan since he would certainly want to hear some of it for himself.

...

Later that evening, long after Jonathan had returned home and Harry had to re-tell most of the story. Hermione volunteered so he let her do most of it this time so he didn't have to repeat all of it himself again. Also, Kara and now Clark who also learned a bit more having spent the afternoon with Kara explained more from their perspective. After dinner, Jonathan asked Clark how he felt about it. He said,

"Dad, I'd like to show Mr. and Mrs. Potter the ship and see if they can help me understand it. And I was talking to Kara earlier about these abilities we have, and I was wondering. Can we invite her to stay here with us for a while? She can teach me things about the abilities and tell me stories of Krypton and stuff?" asked Clark.

Jonathan glanced to Martha to silently communicate and see what she thought of that, and having gotten the answer he expected, he said. "Sure son. Kara, as Clark's cousin, you are a member of this family too. You are welcome to stay and come and go as you please."

Kara lit up like a Christmas tree and Clark had a big smile too.

"Thanks, Mr. Kent." said Kara.

"Oh, none of that now. Like I said, you're family now. So you can call me Uncle John and Martha, Aunt Martha if you want." said Jonathan.

"Thanks, Dad." said Clark.

"Yes, well let's go show our new friends your ship and see if they can make anything more out of it than we have."

...

So, they all trooped down to the storm-cellar and Jonathan and Clark uncovered the ship and also handed Harry the Key, and explained that it seemed to activate it, but since none of them knew what to do with it once it was activated they had been stumped. But Clark really hadn't spent that much time trying to figure it out either since he first learned of it himself only recently. It wasn't that long ago and well, they wouldn't dredge up that rough patch that occurred between him and his father over keeping that big secret so long, just then.

Kara recognized the Key right away and said. "I know what that is, that is one of the master key's of the House of El. My dad has one too. Kal, I mean Clark, your father invented these. They are special keys designed to be the only way to open and access special Kryptonian devices that are meant to be kept strictly to the House of El. It can actually be imbued with a number of special properties too. May I see it?" she asked.

She turned it over in her palm and said, "See look here. There is some writing on the edges, one says 'hope', the other means 'SM', and this longer phrase means 'barcode.'

"Why does it say those things?" asked Clark.

"Uhm, that I don't know." said Kara.

"May I have another look?" asked Harry.

She handed it back and then Harry just waved his hand and a cloud of what looked like miniature gray gnats flew out of a pendant around his neck, it had to be thousands and thousands of them. Kara finally realized that only she could see them because she was automatically using her microscopic vision by instinct. To everyone else, a machine on a metal table seemed to assemble itself out of nowhere and sat facing the ship and there was a place to sit the key, which Harry did. Then he pushed some buttons. Some lights moved back and forth, the thing hummed for a bit. Then Harry pushed some more buttons and the lights shown on the ship and went back and forth a few times and hummed again.

"Interesting." said Harry. And he walked over to the little ship, ran his hands over it and said, "what a beaut."

"Kara, Clark, your people created some really good tech." Harry said, enthusiastically.

"Well, you can give most of that credit to Clark's father Jor-El, he was Krypton's leading scientist. And my mom is one also, she is the Head of the Science Guild on Argos City." said Kara with pride.

"Well Harry, are you going to keep us mere mortals waiting? What have you learned about this stuff?" asked Hermione.

"Ah, yes. Right. Well, first this key. This is amazing. This contains some of the same properties we use in our nanite artificial intelligences and while powered by another element I am not familiar with, probably one that is somehow unique to red-star stellar matter, it behaves like naquadah and is also a natural elemental super-conductor and can store and dissipate zero point energy like our neutronium-naquadah alloy's can do. As a matter of fact I measure quite a large zpe signature from it, and unless I miss my guess there is also an immense amount of data stored on this, on the order of the size of a person's entire mind or memories. I could be wrong about that, but it reads very similar in that regard as to how our nano-crystalline memory crystals do when we store someone's entire consciousness or memories. This is extraordinarily valuable Clark, don't lose it. I certainly don't know what all it can do yet, but if this was from Earth I would say it also has a number of powerful magic charms on it. But, whatever it really is, I wouldn't dare mess with it for fear of messing it up." said Harry, handing the key back to Clark.

"As for the ship. It clearly has an inter-galactic hyper-space engine, not very fast though. Not as fast as one of ours, but very good considering it could travel through the inter-galactic void at all, or perhaps that was because of what appears to be a very advanced hyper-space navigation system. It also possesses anti-gravity of course for atmospheric flight. Seems to also have a measure of the same element that can store zpe and also appears to have some powerful charms for lack of a better word for it. The ship also seems to contain a large data storage that contains something equally as large as whatever is on that key. Maybe another copy, like a backup copy or something. Who knows, that's just a guess. Could be anything. Clark, the ship had the ability to keep you in suspended animation, what we would call stasis sleep and was equipped to shield you and heal you from just about anything as well as feed you with nutrients. That would be how you made it here all the way from the Andromeda galaxy still nearly a baby. As I understand it, you were sent here not long after your birth, but you arrived here around age three. So, you still aged some while on the trip. I guess the ship was designed to work that way for you. And one last thing. There is a hidden compartment underneath the stasis chamber you slept in Clark, it contains three items made of crystal with signatures of extraordinary levels of inert zpe energy. Do you want me to examine it?" said Harry.

"Sure, I haven't tried taking anything apart yet, so I didn't find anything like that." said Clark.

"Okay, let me see if I can get this open." said Harry.

"There appears to be an indentation here in the panel underneath the cushions where you laid that is shaped like your key. Why don't you do the honors, after all it's your ship." said Harry with a grin.

"Okay, but if I blow up, I'm blaming you." replied Clark.

"Fair enough." said Harry.

Clark placed the key on the slot and the panel to the secret compartment opened and inside was a black metal box. Clark removed it and sat it on a table and carefully opened it. Inside it were three more smaller blue metal boxes. So, he took them each out and sat them down and opened each one. Inside each was an ice blue crystal shard. It was fairly obvious from their shapes and appearances that they would fit together to form a larger single crystal.

After Kara got a good look at it, she gasped. "No. It can't be." she exclaimed raising her hands to her mouth in surprise.

"Why, what is it Kara?" asked Clark.

"I recognize that! It's one of the rare artifacts of our people Clark, entrusted to the House of El. Now that I think about it, I can see why Jor-El would have sent that with you, if he thought you would be the sole survivor of Krypton." said Kara.

"What do you mean? Your city survived?" Clark asked, and the rest of the group was listening eagerly for this answer too.

"Well, as I understand it. The fact that we survived was almost a fluke. There was great political upheaval at the time leading up to the disaster and for periods of time our people were even in a state of civil war. Your father predicted the disaster and tried to warn the High Council, but they didn't believe him. And they chose to ignore his warnings to prepare and try to evacuate as many people as possible. My dad and mom believed your dad, but didn't have even as much political power as he did, so they didn't think they could do much. But, during the last few days and hours leading up to the disaster my mom convinced the Science Guild of Argos City where they lived to let her put up the shield dome you found us with. They had just gotten the dome up when the planet exploded. Honestly, the High Council did nothing and none of us would've survived if it wasn't for your dad, and then for my mom and dad believing him and doing what they could do at Argos. And it was still a miracle we survived even then, I mean look at how you found us. It wasn't a secret that our people had at most a year left. All of this is history to me of course, I wasn't even born yet when Krypton exploded. I was actually one of few born years later, while we were a floating asteroid." said Kara wistfully.

"So, anyway, what I meant was-that is the legendary Crystal of Knowledge. If I remember right from history class, it won't do anything until you actually join all three pieces together. And then I don't know how it works but it contains a Kryptonian computer hard drive which contains all the knowledge of the universe obtained by our people. I believe they say that it can somehow create a large library and computer system that would allow you to access that knowledge, and then the premise would be for someone, you in this case to use that knowledge to re-build our civilization. It may be able to do other things, but that is just what they teach us in school in history. I know there is more to it that are House of El secrets, but if my dad knew them he never told them to me. But, I never thought to ask either. I also never thought I would see it." said Kara.

"Ah, this is pretty big stuff then. Maybe you should take it Kara." said Clark.

Kara let out a big sigh. She put her hand over Clark's where he held one of the crystal shards, closed his fingers around it and said. "No. First of all Argos City doesn't need it. Since we did survive we have our own computers with all that knowledge still stored and available to us, so the crystal isn't the last surviving copy as it was thought it would be. But even more importantly, it belongs to you. Your father Jor-El passed this down to you. It is the most powerful relic of the ancient House of El, and your father was the Head of our House, as you are now Head of our House. It belongs to you." she said solemnly.

With that they closed up the crystals, put them away, re-locked it and re-hid the ship. Clark kept the key in safe-keeping and vowed to learn more about all this soon.

As they were all walking back to the house. Kara said, "If you want I can contact my dad and see if he knows how to use the crystal, then I can tell you?" said Kara.

"Okay, thanks." said Clark.

As Harry, Hermione and Kara made ready to leave, they said. "Well since Kara will be staying here for a while, we'll bring her back tomorrow with all her things. Is that okay?" asked Harry.

"Sure, that will be perfect." replied Martha.

"And thanks for bringing Kara to meet Clark and telling us all that you did. I think this is really going to help Clark cope now with the knowledge of who he really is." added Jonathan.

"You're welcome. That was the point of it all. When we drop Kara off tomorrow we'll leave her with a sub-space communicator that she can use anytime to contact us or her parents on their new home-world, New Krypton. And we'll stay in contact and help in any way we can. She also has access to our stargate at Terra Legato and can come and go as she pleases and with her communicator can request site to site matter transport from here and Terra Legato and back. I'm sure Clark will be in great hands with Kara and he'll get to learn a lot." replied Harry.

They shook hands, and the three teleported away.

After they left, Jonathan said to Clark, "It looks like you have friends in very high places son."

"Well, I guess it was bound to happen since I'm an alien and all, but I'm just glad they don't want to dissect me or avenge their race nearly dying off at the hands of Krypton or something crazy like that." replied Clark.

...

Back at Terra Legato, with Kara safely off to her own adventure with her cousin, Harry got down to business with his own personal pet project. Exploiting the resources of those carbon stars in the Draco Dwarf. Hermione decided she wanted to come along with this one too since Harry was being all secretive about what he hoped to accomplish there, keeping it an 'in the family' project only at the moment.

So, they gated over to the Voyager that was their foothold in that galaxy and directed it to the region of space where the cluster of five carbon stars were located. Hermione watched Harry work on setting up the AI to have it construct a new research station in orbit of the most prominent of the five stars, which was also at a point somewhat equidistant among the five of them. When Harry came up for air, she asked:

"Harry, what exactly is it you hope to find in these stars that you can't get from other stars? I'm sure that's what has you all excited about these." asked Hermione.

"Yes. That's it exactly. As you know we already exploit many rare or uncommon exotic stellar particles in some of our technology, such as the zero point modules, and to a lesser degree the base material for the construction of our nanites." said Harry.

Looking down at the results of the recent scans, "Yeassss!" Harry shouted, and started dancing around like a lunatic.

"Uh, Harry, what's going on?!" exclaimed Hermione.

"Sorry hon, that was the Janus in me doing the happy dance. We found it!" said Harry.

"Well. Here, you can see, the scanners have already found what I was looking for. Our science has catalogued much in 60,000,000 years obviously. But, some exotic particles have only been theorized on because of the specific conditions among even the rarest of stars necessary to create them. As it is, only one of these five very rare carbon stars seems to be emitting a harvestable amount of the particles I'm looking for." said Harry.

"I get it. But, I still don't know what I'm looking at." said Hermione.

"Currently we use a synthesized carbon isotope which is quite strong with many of the properties we need of course, as the foundation for our nanite materials which is bonded with naquadah and neutronium molecules. And you've seen what we can do with that." said Harry.

"With this, we will be able to perform a similar process, using these naturally stellar created molecules to produce a material twice as good as the nanites base material, with new exotic properties that even after all you've seen so far, may still surprise you. You might even think of this as a 'magic metal' if you want. And I'll explain why in a minute."

"What I was looking for and what I have found is a rare circumstellar molecule of a previously unknown carbon allotrope, save for the theories of course. This is a Trimetasphere metallofullerine that we will condition into the alloy we want. It starts out as this stellar produced deuterated barium endohedral fullerene of C80, which is ion doped by the star itself with deuterium atoms that have spin +1 properties, which means that this base material also has the properties of a quantum boson, which in the way we will use it, will effectively make it appear to anyone who doesn't understand the science of this as 'magic metal.' We will enhance it in a similar fashion as to how we do our current nanites, but with one additional atom that will strengthen it beyond what we are able to produce today. Today our base material is not composed of this so-called 'magic metal' and can only be doped with two additional atoms. This new one can take three. So, our finishing process will ion dope these TMMF-B-C80 molecules with one additional atom each of trinium, naquadah, and neutronium, all surrounding the one deuterated barium atom; and all of that encased in the C80 fullerene structure. It is the properties of the fullerene structure that allow us to do all of this and produce a new stable element or molecule." said Harry.

"Pretending that I understood most of that for the moment. What would the properties of this new element be and what would we use it for?" asked Hermione.

"It will be an any-temperature superconductor, non-soluble at any temperature save that of the fusion reaction of a star itself, EMP resistant at the molecular level, and it will be a mega-ultrahard fullerite, i.e. harder than a diamond, able to handle more than 1 mega-tons/cm2 of isostatic pressure. Well, that is what it can handle in it's base form. When we are done modifying it, it's hardness will be reduced essentially back to just standard ultrahard fullerite, the same as a manufactured diamond, but able to handle 350 tons/cm2 of isostatic pressure. The reduction in hardness from the base molecule is worth it for the application of the material. Of course, we can still use non-modified supplies of this material to build simple construction materials if we need something that can handle a 1+ mega-ton/cm2 of isostatic pressure. But, offhand I don't think I will want to do that because the supply of this material while vast because of the near eternal nature of this star, even for it's very advanced age-we will only be able to extract but so much of it at a time. Besides we use our shields to resist forces well beyond into the multi-giga-ton of pressure anyway, and I have some big ideas on how I want to use the new material." said Harry.

"So, exactly what do you want to use this stuff for?" asked Hermione.

"Well, the quantum boson effects combined with the naquadah zpe storage and channeling properties will allow me to create what in effect would be a 'magic suit of armor'. At least that's my first planned application of it. The material will have the ability to multi-morph and is self-powered by it's stored naquadah. Those same unusual properties will allow us to use zpe type 'charms' to mentally and genetically bind a suit of this armor to any individual, so it becomes their personal armor, practically an extension of themselves that they can summon and return to and from normal space and trans-phasic extra-dimensional space, at will. And when I say multi-morph, I mean that it can take any shapes and perform any functions the owner wants, including all the things our current nanites can do, such as form machines capable of artificial intelligence and even weapons. The limit really is on the quantity of the material I supply for each suit. But, you could be wearing this and then will a part of it to form into a long cable with 350 cm/2 tensile strength if you needed it for some reason, or a spear, or anything else that you'd want to create using nanobud structures. Frankly because of the way it will be bound to the wearer, the only other limitation beside the amount of material is ones imagination and knowledge, and in this case, imbued with their own stored artificial intelligence, a number of advanced technical applications could be built right into any given suits static memory. So the wearer doesn't have to essentially genius up the structure themselves each time, just summon it and tell it what to do." said Harry.

"And as for you and I. I will create us special suits that have an expansion dimension of huge spare quantities of the stuff, so that we could do things like will entire structures into existence or even a stargate complete with a DHD, or a heavy shield emitter with a cold fusion power source, weapons, etc." said Harry.

"This stuff could do all that?" asked Hermione.

"Well, not yet. But it will be able to. First I need to extract or mine if you will measurable quantities of it. Then a new special refining station needs to be built to ion dope these molecules the way that I want. That station will work very much like one of our zpm creation stations that also needs to be immersed at station keeping inside a star, except that instead of at the photosphere, this one will need to be closer to the stars core fusion reaction. So... my plan is to build all of that right here and begin this manufacturing process. Then I will need to experiment and work on actually making all that stuff happen that I just described. It sounds simple and it will be simple, once I figure out how to perfect it and learn how to use it in a dummy proof fashion, so then we can teach it to anyone who would wear or own one of the suits. And, you wouldn't have to call it a suit or even use it as one if you didn't want to. I mean whatever you want it's standard form to be could be any shape you wanted. Plus, unless you are using it in normal space, you would probably leave it in its out of phase dimension so that it's not in the way or whatever during normal day to day activities. You could even shape it into something like a special magical war hammer, or sword or spear or something that you would just summon at your will whenever you needed it, to get all medieval on you. And don't forget due to the 'magic metal' properties of this you will be able to place any permanent zpe charm on it you want, such as glamour's, feather-weight, the list is almost endless there as you know." concluded Harry.

"Wow, that actually is very awesome. I definitely agree with you then. We should put the resources in to getting this stuff. How long do you think it will take?" asked Hermione.

"It will only take a few weeks for the Voyager AI to construct everything that I need, then I'll implement it and let molecules start collecting. I will also implement some molecular collection at the other four carbon stars too because while they don't have harvestable quantities of the TMMF-B-C80 molecules, they will produce much of the other base materials we need for the rest of the work. Therefore we should be able to perform most of the work right here in this sector of space. I will have probes find planets with suitable quantities of naquadah and trinium that will be used in this process. After that, after experimenting with and perfecting prototypes, I think I will have enough to build a suit for each of us within a year. Then I will start producing suits that I intend at first to go to our Imperial Knights as well as our other close friends. Then from there as we continue to produce quantities of the stuff, I hope to offer a suit to all of our novum Alteran brethren. From there, who knows. The manufacturing pace may take a long time to catch up to our population growth so I'm not sure we'll ever be able to produce much more to do more than that with it, except maybe to re-direct some of the supply for special projects from time to time. Or, well, I mean if this material becomes 'that' important to the Empire, I could set up a huge manufacturing complex within and around this star. But, I'd hate for it to become treated as a commodity and become ubiquitous because right now this one star is our only source of the material." said Harry.

"Awesome. I can't wait to get my own suit then." said Hermione.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Timeframe: Fall 2001-Summer 2002, continued...

After getting the Draco Dwarf projects started, Harry and Hermione returned to Terra Legato. She got back to work at the Academy, which she had been heavily neglecting of late, while Harry returned to Atlantis to make a personal appearance in several places he needed to be as well as to follow-up with General O'Neill's meeting request. Hermione conceded that Harry might have to undertake the next couple expeditions on his own so that she could get some work done too.

At the EarthForce SOC conference room on Baker Island, Harry just finished greetings with everyone, including EarthGov Prime Minister Blair and sat down to answer questions.

General O'Neill finished recapping the comments made by Commander Hermiod and the reason he requested this meeting. Prime Minister Blair looked at Harry and raised his eyebrows in recognition. He thought to himself, how hadn't he'd seen it before? The answer was obvious though because in all their original meetings he wore a faux Sumerian god costume and went by the name Overlord Enki. He wondered now how the infamous Harry Potter would play this. And also wished he hadn't stopped taking the Daily Prophet when he left as UK Prime Minister.

"Mr. Prime Minister, It is my understanding that leaders in your position are among the select few in society briefed into a certain extremely sensitive secret. If that is the case, I'd like to remind you that even I am bound to keep certain secrets. Essentially because they are not solely my secrets to tell."

'So, that's how he planned to handle this. Sneaky little cheeky bugger. I like this kid.' thought Prime Minister Blair.

"Yes, indeed Emperor Potter. I will take this up with our mutual associates on that matter the next time I speak with them." said Prime Minister Blair.

"To that end. Generals," addressing the several in the room including O'Neill. "EarthGov is aware of certain above top secret aspects of the Alteran's origins so to speak, and those of us in the know are sworn to secrecy. Therefore, a new standing order for EarthForce effective immediately, is not to ask such questions or to even propagate curiosity about them. I am sure that Hermiod meant no harm, but if my guess is correct, even they are unaware of all of the Alteran's secrets." said Prime Minister Blair with a glance to Harry indicating he would like him to say something else if he could.

"Thank You Prime Minister. That is essentially correct. Allow me to satisfy some of your curiosity but for now we will have to leave portions of our history at that. Here is a very brief outline of our history including some of the facts relating to our involvement with Earth. My people trace our origins in another galaxy extremely far away on the other side of the universe over 60,000,000 years ago. About 50,000,000 years ago a portion of our civilization, my ancestors, traveled and explored the galaxy and settled here on Earth, and from Earth we seeded the origins of human life throughout this galaxy, which we call Avalon and you call the Milky Way. While we thrived on Earth, we made our Capitol City on our city-ship Atlantis, then berthed in what you call the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica. In those days that entire continent was also in a temperate and beautiful climate. It is for that reason when we asked for land to resume a settlement to Earth, we asked for land roughly centered on that area." said Harry.

"Our people were more interested in expanding our scientific knowledge than anything else by that time, but we did also colonize several worlds throughout the galaxy, then many millions of years later, which would be roughly 7.5 million years ago from present time, a terrible plague swept over the galaxy killing all human life including our own. It moved so fast that we were unable to find a cure in time. All of our colony worlds died off one by one, and all other human civilizations in the galaxy save two others were destroyed at that time, and they saved themselves by going into isolation; as did one of our non-human allies whom we still don't know what happened to. Which we then did as well. We abandoned Earth and flew away with what remained of our population in our city-ship Atlantis to settle in another galaxy. While doing so, we also resorted to the only means left to us to rid the galaxy of the plague. We used the same method that we used 50,000,000 years ago when we first arrived to reset the building blocks of all life in the galaxy which had the added effect of destroying the plague as well, thereby originating a second seeding of new human life in the galaxy free of the plague. It is from this program that your species of humans evolved and then some were taken from Earth, forcibly disseminated by the Goa'uld as hosts and slaves to over 70 different planets during a period beginning roughly 10,000 to about 5,000 years ago, as well as a few minor incursions of their's since then that you were unaware of. Also, as it happens my people fought a war for a hundred years and lost to a terrible enemy in our new galaxy that thought of humans as nothing more than food, as cattle." said Harry, pausing as many people in the room gasped and some looked apoplectic with outrage.

"Well, you did call me here and asked, so I hope you are ready to hear these things. Space travel is not all fun and games. In fact, had I not liberated the galaxy from the Goa'uld right before you started exploring it yourself, you would be having far less success right now than you might think. If I and my people were not here at all and you had encountered them, it is likely you would've ended up bombed back to the stone age with the survivors going on to serve as more hosts and slaves. So..., be careful out there." interjected Harry.

"Anyway, that was also about 10,000 years ago. At that time, our people had evolved to learn how to cheat death entirely and bodily ascend to a higher plane of existence, living as beings as pure energy. So with that option, instead of retrenching and trying to win that war, the bulk of my people simply chose to abandon this plane altogether and ascended en masse. Thereafter sinking Atlantis fully preserved under powerful shields in the great ocean of our new world, with only several dozen then deciding to return to this galaxy and attempt to carry on our civilization on this plane. Those people, my ancestors, then lived in relative isolation and unaware of any of the goings on in the galaxy until about ten years ago, when I decided to lead a select group of our isolated community back into the stars. The first thing I discovered while in the midst of recovering our ancestral city Atlantis was the Goa'uld and what they had done to the galaxy in the past 10,000-30,000 years. From there I think you already have an outline of what we've been doing since. Especially with the details from the current political star maps we gave you in our initial exchange a few years ago." concluded Harry.

"That is all that I feel comfortable sharing with you at this time, please do not ask follow-up questions about any of that, except as necessary through our formal diplomatic channels at Hasara." added Harry.

General O'Neill looked like he wanted to say something anyway, but Prime Minister Blair just gave him a look that said, we'll talk later.

"Thank you Emperor Potter, that was very helpful. Even with what I know that filled in a few blanks for me." said prime Minister Blair.

"You're welcome Prime Minister, and I'm sure that it did." Harry said with a small chuckle. "Oh, I am sure the mention of our last enemy was frightening to hear about so let me assure you that several years ago I led a large armada back to that galaxy and eradicated 98.5% of that enemy and liberated the remnant humans there and have been helping them rebuild as well. There is still a fleet searching the galaxy for the one remaining presence of that enemy that we believe may have survived and we maintain a large military outpost there as well just in case. But, they are not a significant threat to us anymore, and to further ease your mind. They never developed inter-galactic travel and have no idea this galaxy much less the humans in it, even exist." concluded Harry.

With EarthGov appeased and maybe setting a couple of their Xeno-anthropologists off chasing their tails over the several additional clues he dropped on them there. Not to mention what Prime Minister Blair might stir up now with his contacts in the wizarding world. It's all to the good. Harry wants everything to be open at some point. Let them pressure each other in those directions if the seeds he planted take hold.

Harry returned to Eskal to meet with his team of novum Alteran scientists, Ayiana and her team, plus the three-member delegations from Krypton, Kree, and the Skrull. They went over general progress of their sharing of science and technology and any suggestions they each might have for each other.

The Kryptonians suggested that the AE take a close look at their Phantom Zone. It might be a good replacement for any criminal sentences indicating capital punishment or life without possibility of parole.

The Skrull's suggested that the AE take samples of their diverse genetics and shape-shifting abilities to use with the Alteran's celestial-like expertise in genetics to engineer a race of super-warriors not unlike their former War-Skrulls but possibly even more advanced.

The Kree acknowledged that Alteran science already held the keys to their contributions, however they didn't appear to apply it the way they did. So they offered to build them an Omni-Wave Projector, a device which can be used in an offensive capacity across hyper-space as a weapon. Also, the Alteran molecular construction devices and neural interfaced nanites could do roughly the same things as their Psyche-Magnetron, but the latter could do more than just shape inorganic matter, it could also modify the genetic structure of a persons body giving it super powers.

Harry thought that all of those suggestions offered some opportunities in their own way, possibly even some combination of their suggestions might be interesting. He thanked them all and said he would give all of it some thought. As for giving people super-powers. That he had to think on. That sounded like a Pandora's box sized mistake. Of course, maybe a little something-something for him and Hermione couldn't hurt. Unless of course it screwed up their ability to reproduce a solid line of full Alterans, then the Psyche-Magnetron could go stuff itself. Harry had still not fully trusted these new races with the knowledge of the full extent his race had innate mastery over zpe. As it was, they already have super-powers after a fashion. They should probably stick with what they have. But, such a device is still damn interesting.

The Kree also reminded him that he agreed previously to make a visit to the M'Krann and see what they could learn of the recent successor to the Shi'ar empire. He told Adam to take note of that and schedule that trip for him soon. While he accompanies a representative each from the Kree, Skrull, and Kryptonians to visit the M'Krann. Oh, and while he was at it he had Adam order an expedition to explore that Alderson's Disk in the SMC. The Kryptonians are very advanced so they would be welcome to send a participating delegation also if they wanted, but to be warned the object contained a yellow-star.

While Adam was busy setting up those schedules with the various delegations, Harry took Ayiana aside for a one on one conference.

...

"First, welcome back from Othala and congratulations on your work there with the Asgard." said Harry.

"Thank you High Councilor. It was rewarding work. The opposite of what I believed fate held for me the day I watched Atlantis leave Earth." replied Ayiana.

"I bet. Well done. Do you think the Asgard are going to get used to looking human again after almost 30,000 years?" said Harry.

"Yes. Frankly, I think they are looking forward to it. But that is the next generation though, once they start reproducing from this new set of final clones we made for them with the modified oocytes." replied Ayiana.

"Good. I wanted to speak with you privately over a couple things. First, just in general I think you should play along with the Skrulls shape shifting DNA research suggestions, but between you and me I'm not all that interested in engineering a new race bred to be super-soldiers. On the other hand we could benefit from the research in general and who knows we might find another application for the knowledge down the road." said Harry.

"I think you should make your work on cures for squibs, lycanthropy, vampirism, and other human zpe genetic disorders the priority. I will get you in touch with Baronets Sirius Black and Remus Lupin at Terra Legato, who maintain on the ground contacts for us in the human wizarding world and can obtain all the genetic samples you need." said Harry.

"That's great High Councilor, I was hoping you would say that." replied Ayiana.

"Certainly. Also when we are in a private conversation like this you can just call me Harry, you don't need to use my titles all the time." said Harry.

"Well, the main thing I wanted to speak to you privately about might seem a little strange and maybe there is an immoral or amoral side to it at some point. But, I'd like to run this idea by you and if it makes sense, we will treat it as a secret project for now, answerable only to me through you."

Ayiana nodded and said, "Okay."

"I've become rather curious about the various genetic makeup and access to zpe and the differing uses of it among the various magical species of the Earth wizarding world. My curiosity was even more piqued when I heard of the genetic shenanigans of this race of so-called Celestials, specifically among the Kree and the Skrull and of course their own specific unusual abilities. I don't know if any of that is related or not but determining that can be a sub-goal of the project. Who knows this might even tie back to your research into the wizards zpe genetic disorders. But, at the core what I want to do is assign a habitable world that is so far uninhabited, quarantine it, and then creatively acquire enough of each breed in a nature reserve to husband our own population of these creatures, for your later study. I realize this approach will take a while but, as a side benefit of this project I want to preserve all of these species ourselves in case something would cause them to go extinct on Earth, or in case the wizarding worlds secrecy disappears someday and they are abandoned or hunted down by mundane humans." said Harry.

"What do you think so far?" asked Harry.

"I can see the benefits of all that. I'm not a zoologist or veterinarian though. And the scope of the work is much larger than what I and my staff are presently capable of. And I don't see anything even amoral about what you are suggesting so far." replied Ayiana.

"Good. Well, first I just want you to be overall in charge of the program, as you will be overall in charge of the eventual research. But, I am going to assign you a team of twelve newly graduated novum Alteran led by a young lady named Luna Lovegood who loves these animals and is an expert zoologist and veterinarian for magical species, to take point in the work. They also know the lay of the land and the history of these creatures having grown up with them. We're also not going to ask for the most part. We are simply going to find some in the wild and take them. In some cases though they might be mundane enough that we can buy some such as owls or kneazles. Sometimes maybe they won't be in the wild at all like dragons, which are almost all on Earth reservations at this point. So that's where it gets amoral. Where it may well get immoral way down the line, is that I have some wild ass ideas of genetic engineering for some of these animals in mind. Where I am not so keen on such things for our sapient species, I have less aversion to in the rest of the animal kingdom." said Harry.

"Ah, I see what you mean. Well, I don't have any problem with the reservation and research parts of the programs and heading it all up. But, if we do start experimenting with cross-breeding, back-crossing, or outright genetic engineering, we will need to discuss specifics at that time." said Ayiana.

"Fair enough Ayiana. Thanks. I will have your new team sent to you as soon as possible, along with any other ships and logistical support you will need." concluded Harry.

...

That was enough for another long day. When Harry returned home that evening he brought Hermione up to date, who really had become his full partner in everything now, so he tried to share almost everything with her except the one big secret about Sanctuary that he wants to keep as a surprise, even to her.

She asked if she could go on the trip to visit the M'Krann with him when he goes in a few days. It sounded like something big she didn't want to miss. Additionally, the twelve new Imperial Knights that were assigned to them had arrived at Terra Legato. The commander at the Citadel would rotate their duty as needed but, the plan was there would always be twelve on duty to guard the pair of them, or six each when they split up in different locales. So, when Harry returned to Atlantis or Eskal through the gate or deployed on a ship or went to the bathroom it seemed like, he now had a minimum of Adam his HFR personal assistant and his six Imperial Knight bodyguards. It was actually starting to feel like he was an Emperor now. He hoped they at least didn't try to chew his food for him or something.

...

Next week the Emperor and his retinue with diplomatic representatives from the Kryptonian, Kree, and Skrull races arrived in orbit of M'Kraan aboard the ACS-102 Javabli in the company of a full squadron of ten Destiny battleships, and two battle-cruisers each from the other three races. This amount of military force in this small fleet was meant as nothing more than a sign of respect and of unity of the gathered races.

The Kree had the honor of communicating with the M'Kraan, who were formally and temporarily known as the Scy'ar Tal, meaning "death to all Shi'ar," whom had recently resumed using their previous name. They would all find out soon that M'Kraan was not their original name either.

So, the Kree had the honor of making the introductions. The delegation from the AE beamed down to the designated coordinates and Harry was immediately astonished at what he saw.

"Furling!" exclaimed Harry, before he could stop himself.

At that exclamation, the receiving party stopped in amazement. No one should know them by that name, let alone in that galaxy. So, they as one looked at Harry and one psionically scanned Harry and his party.

"Alteran!" replied a member of the receiving party.

"Indeed." replied Harry.

"It is very good to see you all again my friends. When we returned to the Avalon galaxy and resumed contact with the Nox and the Asgard we were told that you had vanished. We all feared the worst. Of course for a great deal of time, we did not fare much better." said Harry.

"So, I take it you are the mysterious M'Kraan we have been told about?"

"We are. It is a long story. I would believe you have an equally as long story as well. As we had also feared the worse for your race millions of years ago ourselves." said the Eldest.

"Come," said the Eldest. "Let us retire to comfortable chambers and we will exchange our tales. I see that you are in the company of Kryptonians, Kree, and Skrull. So, I take it you've heard a little bit about our recent affairs, or at least the little any of them know."

And the Eldest led his receiving party and the AE delegation to a comfortable meeting chamber and had refreshments of all varieties brought in, to the tastes of the individual races gathered.

The Kree and Skrull were looking back and forth at each other in astonishment that the Alterans and the M'Kraan aka Scy'ar Tal aka Furling? apparently know each other from very long ago, before their races even existed apparently and are old friends. The Kryptonians didn't appear as bemused, they actually expected something like this. They knew all along the M'Kraan were far more ancient than the history of their galaxies knew, but they didn't know their secrets either. However they did know of the M'Kraan's sacred eternal trust as guardian of the M'Kraan Crystal.

So, Harry with Hermione's help told the story of the Alteran's from the point at which they departed Earth 7.5 million years ago, leaving out the last 10,000 years of their remnant on Earth itself. Referring only to an isolated remnant that recently returned to the stars in Avalon to set things right. That is all they wanted most ears to know at this point in time. The Furling listened in rapt attention.

"That is some tale Emperor Potter, thank you for sharing it. We are sorry to hear of such a loss to those Wraith in Pegasus that you mentioned after all that time having finally cured your plague. But, we are very happy you managed to survive and returned to the stars. Also sad to hear what happened to our old friends the Asgard and happy to hear that you returned in time to save them too. You say that the Nox also went into isolation and now simply prefers to remain there? Any idea why?" asked the Eldest.

"We have not pressed them. As you know they were always the healers and the peace-makers of our alliance but, they appear to have in the intervening millions of years become pure pacifists. They are open to talking and trading with us and the Asgard and have happily assisted us with some peace negotiations that we needed help brokering. In fact they brokered the peace between the Kree and Skrull here at our request. I am certain they would love to hear from you again as well. All that they or the Asgard knew was that in the last days only about 10,000-15,000 years ago when they last cooperated as an alliance, they could no longer find a trace of either of our races, they worked together in Avalon to push back the Goa'uld menace that had cropped up there. Unfortunately their efforts were not enough, mainly because by that time the Asgard were already suffering from their cloning difficulties and their new war with the Replicator's. So, they pushed them back, created some form of detente peace with them, but the Goa'uld were able to press on much of the galaxy." replied Harry.

"Well, after that last push against the Goa'uld, they decided to formally disband what remained of our old alliance. Of course since we returned the Asgard and Alterans have renewed our alliance and the Nox are with us as well but only purely as pacifists. It would be interesting to hear if in time you would be interested in re-joining the Great Races Alliance as well?" said Harry.

"Possibly." answered the Eldest. "In fact, given the preview that the Kree gave us of your meeting them and the events subsequent to that with a little background on your Empire, we were hoping to ask a favor or two of you anyway at our meeting today. We did not know we would be seeing Alterans here today, all we were told of was this vast benevolent Avalon Empire who goes around saving dying races. But, that is neither here nor there, as you can see we have gone by three different names just in the past 15,000 years ourselves." said the Eldest.

"Allow me to get you caught up with what happened on our end and you will see how we got to where we are. As you probably know the plague didn't effect us as widespread as it did the human races but it did have an impact, so we began making contingency plans. Long after you left and the Asgard and the Nox seemed to go into isolation, and frankly we somehow did miss the whole Goa'uld rising...we simply decided to return here to our home galaxy and our home-world, this planet." said the Eldest.

"I almost don't want to reveal all of our secrets here because these younger races, especially the Kree and the Skrull only know of us as the mysterious Scy'ar Tal and recently learned of our M'Kraan heritage. But, we are aware of their history and their recent events; and are satisfied enough that they have made amends among themselves and have joined your Empire in good standing, so that we can trust this knowledge getting out now." said the Eldest.

"However, much of this will come as a surprise to you." the Eldest said, addressing the Kree and the Skrull, as well as the Kryptonians whom they were aware knew they had a more ancient pedigree but did not know their secrets.

"At the time of our exodus from Avalon back to this galaxy, only a small temple remnant still resided on our home-world as guardians. Fulfilling our races sworn destiny to guard and protect the M'Kraan Crystal, which Emperor Potter, you will know as the Nexus. We will only speak here of the legendary facts that most races know. I trust that you still have your doorway to the Nexus, the Quantum Mirror?" asked the Eldest.

"We do. You will not be happy to hear that it remained lost and unsupervised for millions of years though after my ancestors exodus to Pegasus and then for the 10,000 years during our isolation. Fortunately, it remained preserved in the vault it was stored in and when we reclaimed all of our old territory, we found it as well as the other ancient artifacts. It now resides in a very secure location under our active control. I apologize on behalf of my people for our having lost sight of it for a time." Harry said, bowing to the Furling Eldest.

"We understand. Do not worry over it. Much has happened to you and us in that time. In fact, much worse things here have happened to the security of the Nexus itself, which is our fault. And thus begins our tale." replied the Eldest.

"After returning here we found that the populations of the galaxy had grown tremendously in the millions of years of our absence. We rejoined our brothers and sisters in the sacred duty and were content to simply continue doing so. We did this for 13,000 years. Then 1,000 years ago the Shi'ar came as conquerors to this and the surrounding two satellite galaxies which are all heavily populated with thousands of races on tens of thousands of worlds. But, they conquered and assimilated all into what appeared at first to be an quasi-democratic, economic cooperative. So, initially we did not fear them. Most of the races seemed to be happily benefiting from their arrangements. But, when the Shi'ar learned the legends of the secrets this world held and lacked the respect for it that the other races had, they came to take it, wanting its power for itself. We were small and weak and they were many and strong. We were unprepared and they defeated us, driving our survivors into an underground movement, adopting the name Scy'ar Tal that the local races know us as. The name Scy'ar Tal simply means "death to all Shi'ar" and we reformed our race changing our way of life to the ways of combat. Recently, we took advantage of a civil war between two factions of the royal family of the Shi'ar to destroy their military utterly in an ambush with terrible weapons of mass destruction. And in so doing evicted the royal family and their hold on the empire back to their home-world which at this time still remains under our quarantine. We are the only other race that we know of that knows where their home-world is. They were always careful to keep that hidden from their conquered worlds lest it be targeted for vengeance. What little fleet we have is spent keeping them in quarantine right now and destroying any efforts of theirs to build new shipyards for space travel." said the Eldest.

"The majority of the worlds in our three galaxies have resumed something of the same economic cooperative they had before without a titular head, and yet because of our feat they look to us for leadership and to preside over disputes. I think they expect us to lay claim to leadership of the Empire for ourselves. We do not wish this. We do not wish to continue to fight the Shi'ar either. Now that we have re-claimed our world and saved the Nexus, we simply want to resume focusing on protecting it. This brings me to the favor I had hoped to ask your mighty benevolent Empire when you came to visit us. Now that I know who you are I may ask for more, and do more ourselves on our part to help you make sure it happens, if you will agree." said the Eldest.

"Eldest, we will try to help you in any way that we can." replied Harry.

"Originally I was going to ask if you could assist us in placing our world under your protection from other warlords who seek powers they do not understand such as the Shi'ar, and to take over our role in quarantine and subduing the Shi'ar so they cannot come back out into the galaxy in an effort to regain power. Most of their power base when you speak of industry and economy remains among the currently free worlds of the economic cooperative." said the Eldest.

"What I would prefer to do, again if you are willing. Is for you to formally consider the Furling request to join your Empire, with your eternal promise to protect the Nexus, and we know you know the cost of failure in that. So, like no one else, we trust you with this. We will remain here as the caretakers of course, but we are too small and too few to continue to beat back large inter-galactic military forces, unlike yourselves. If you accept this, we will go before the senate chambers of the Shi'ar economic cooperative on the former artificial Shi'ar Throne world Chandilar as they have asked us to do several times to assume leadership of the Council, and thus in so doing also declare the economic cooperative's under our leadership's formal membership within the Avalon Empire led by our millions of years old ancient allies, the Alterans. Thereby adding their strength to yours and your strength to ours; and together we can keep peace throughout these galaxies and continue to keep rogue forces such as the Shi'ar subdued." concluded the Eldest.

Harry sat there with a stunned look on his face for a minute. He was composed enough not to let his jaw drop to the floor. Such gestures are well beneath his station after all, but in his mind his jaw was hitting the floor. Did the Furling just offer through their local leadership to more than double the size and power of his Empire?

...

After some further discussion and some clarification, yes. Indeed they did. The Furling especially wanted the flag of the Avalon Empire to fly over all former Shi'ar Empire worlds in order to fully flush the Aerie influence from them, so that in time they forget the name Shi'ar and only know of the mighty Avalon Empire with the ancient allies of the M'Kraan/Scy'ar Tal aka Furling's who liberated them from the avian predators of Aerie. In the Furling's minds, destroying the Aerie's legacy utterly was the best way to destroy them utterly. Other than that they are nothing more than one mere world of over-reaching sapients with some advanced technology. Something the mighty Alterans could take care of any day without breaking a sweat.

So, they spent a little time discussing some detail as to how that would work and how they would accomplish it. The Furling said that even though the Throne world Chandilar had already been purged of any meaningful military presence, the place was still inhabited by millions of Aerie administrators and clerical people who did the paperwork of running the old Empire and the economic cooperative. The Furling suggested that the AE arrive in a show of force even though force will not be necessary. To illustrate to all the races there if not especially the Shi'ar still in residence, that a new sheriff was indeed in town. That all they had to do was trust the new sheriff, great friends of their liberators and all would be okay. Meanwhile, they will book a one way passage for the remaining Shi'ar back to their quarantined home-world.

Then they discussed who would replace those millions of people doing that work. Hermione suggested replacing them all with HFR's like he originally did the Goa'uld. It certainly could be done, and certainly a lot easier than finding millions of new people to train and transition into new jobs in an Empire they had no experience with. So, that would be that part going in. They would just bring in the HFR's and have them one at a time absorb the memories of a given Shi'ar and assume their duties.

As for a show of force, as well as leaving behind a sheriff's department to continue to overuse that metaphor. Harry thought he had found a good re-use for his remaining 308 moth-balled upgraded Ha'tak that are also crewed by 500 HFR warriors. Hmm. They might actually be able to do that. Except those ships don't have inter-galactic hyper-drives. Therefore, enter the next set of trans-sub-space apertures that need installing. Fred and George had told him they finished implementing the hub and the inaugural conduit and aperture to Pegasus and all tested out, so he would just have to juggle around their implementation schedule and get these three galaxies added to the hub next. When Harry got back to Atlantis he would dispatch three Voyagers to the NGC 3109 and it's satellite galaxies Sextans A and the Antlia Dwarf to get that process started. So, another problem solved.

After a couple hours hashing through all these particulars it had been a very long and stressful day, but they actually seemed to have a workable plan to get this done.

Harry asked if they do this would the Furling please send three members back to his Fleet HQ where they have an annex that serves as the Empire's inter-galactic think-tank for the exchange and insertion of new science and technology. They agreed, plus they would send along three diplomatic teams, one to go to the Nox and one to go to the Asgard-to re-make both of those acquaintances and one that will take an office at Hasara, to become a part of the trade alliance there. Demonstrating to Emperor Potter that they mean business about being a real active member of the new Empire.

Finally, they agreed that the AE would begin sending inter-galactic capable ships immediately to aid in the security and defense of M'Kraan and the quarantine of Aerie. Meanwhile it would take a month for the AE to be ready for the full plan to go forward. Until then they would use M'Kraan as a rendezvous point for various forces as the begin to arrive. For example, Harry would dispatch right away a colony ship from Javabli's moon, temporarily re-assigned to this program to come there and create the millions of HFR's they will need for this job, then it will play shuttle to transport all the Shi'ar off Chandilar to Aerie.

Until then, Harry left all ten of his accompanying squadron of Destiny class battleships in orbit of M'Kraan for their defense, with three to be embarked by teams of Furling and sent as a unit to Aerie to immediately re-enforce their small fleet there enforcing the quarantine; and left behind a team of six of his novum Alteran staff as ambassadors, advisors, and liaison to remain with the Furling leadership to assist them with preparations on this end, remaining in contact with Harry via Adam at all times as necessary.

...

Then Harry and Hermione returned home with their remaining retinue aboard the Javabli, Harry with a pounding headache.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Timeframe: 2001-2002, concluded...

After getting back to Atlantis and Hermione returning to Terra Legato, Harry worked feverishly on getting the Chandilar campaign ready. He never had to build so many HFR's at one time before. That took a lot of material resources. They were non-specific on how many he would need, so he commissioned building two million of them. If they were replacing a lot more live people than that, well they are AI's, they can mega-multi-task. Fortunately they will all fit on one re-purposed colony ship in a shape ideal for transporting. It would probably take over twenty trips back and forth to deport all those Shi'ar back to Aerie though.

He then broke the news to the Grand Admiral to have three hundred of their moth-balled upgraded Ha'tak prepped and ready for deployment to the artificial throne world planet Chandilar in the NGC3109 galaxy and for him to assign a good competent admiral and staff that is prepared for a long-term deployment leaving in just under one month. The Admiral in command of this mission would also serve as military governor of Chandilar alongside a Furling civilian governor, and they would both report directly to Harry himself as Senior Counsel for those galaxies which would henceforth be known as the Furling Sector.

The Admiral would also be accompanied by a team of four Imperial Knights for protection and any special operations that are needed. Unfortunately with all the other assignments of Knights that were ongoing and the relatively small size of the trained force thus far, they couldn't spare more at that time.

Harry was abolishing the old Shi'ar magestor and magestrix form of government and replacing it with traditional imperial rule. Harry was working with his Furling friends to find new and creative ways to stick it to the peacocks. When Harry told the Furling what a peacock was, they said that is 'perfect' and couldn't stop laughing all day. The other great thing about deploying two million HFR's to this throne world is that he is simultaneously deploying two million advanced weapons platforms that can double as security. Handy thing that since these would be the ones most often interfacing on a day by day basis with the tens of millions of people from the thousands of other races that come through Chandilar and conduct trade and commerce, and government business there.

Then finally Harry made a trip to the trans-hub space station to both congratulate them for their great work and to re-write their entire implementation schedule to get the Furling Sector up on the network in less than thirty days and passed remote control to them of the three relevant Voyagers he had just sent to those galaxies which will build the trans-sub-space apertures on the other end.

On the way back from there, before returning to Atlantis, Harry made his planned return trip to the Draco Dwarf to supervise the installation of his mining and refining factories in the carbon stars. The material collection process would begin for the new base molecule that Harry named 'deubarium'. After he applied his finishing process for his application he called it 'deubarium nanites,' or simply 'quantum nanites' for a common nickname or jargon. The official long name of the finished product is 'trinium naquadah neutronium ion doped deuterated barium trimetasphere metallofullerite, or 'nano-crystalline trinaqneudeubarite', or for example in other layman's parlance they speak of naquadah-neutronium alloys, this would be a trinium-naquadah-neutronium-deubarium alloy. Of course, if old school wizards ever see this, they might as well go ahead and call it 'magic metal' for all the good explaining it would do.

Before making his way back out, he instructed the AI that after it was done fully activating all mining and refining processes, to then begin assembling and deploying a network of their self-healing defense satellites surrounding the area of space of the primary star they are harvesting from and the station. It would serve to let anyone know who might stumble across this space in their travels that this sector and these stars were claimed by the Avalon Empire and of course defend that claim if necessary.

...

While Harry was doing all that, the government officials and military brass back at EarthGov had a follow-up discussion about the Alterans. They were all over the place on their opinions of the Alterans claims about ascension and their ability and acts taken to seed and reset the building blocks of all life in the galaxy.

"These people seem to think they are gods or something." said General O'Neill.

"How do we know we can trust them. For that matter, how do we know all that stuff they just told us is true?" said General O'Neill.

"Jack, ahem... General, the body of work that Doctor Littlefield brought us back from Heliopolis and all of our independent studies of their culture are confirmed by their assertions." said Doctor Daniel Jackson, Head of Xeno-Archeology.

"I don't know about the ascension bits. Frankly, we don't know enough about it. But Colonel Carter has long theorized on the possibility of such beings; and whenever we discuss this sort of thing in front of the Asgard all we get is a lot of head nodding...in the affirmative." said Doctor Jackson.

"So, are you saying that all of that is alright then? Them playing god?" asked General O'Neill.

"No, I'm simply saying we have no reason to simply conclude they were lying or that those things aren't possible. We do know that from our own research that their species is at least over fifty million years old. I don't think any of us are qualified to conclude what a space faring race that old could do or could not do." said Doctor Jackson.

"You know gentlemen, the other problem is that when and if this sort of thing gets out into the public domain it will upset quite a lot of people that cling to our traditional religious beliefs." said General Landry.

"So far, the people have mostly just accepted that the idea of these extremely advanced sciences and very old races are not mutually exclusive of the existence of God as we understand Him. They've concluded that all of this is just part of his master plan. But, we've never talked about aliens seeding human life here before or bodily ascension to the higher planes." said General Landry.

"The idea of them having reset and seeded all life in the galaxy not once but twice. Each time leading to a branch of the human species, not to count their own branch which obviously came before each of those, making us the third evolution of mankind by that account. I think people are going to protest either the knowledge as pure blasphemy or that we would work with aliens that claim or possibly worse could or would do such things. And don't get me started on that bodily ascension to a higher plane of existence, living as beings of energy. You know what that sounds like right? And the religious people aren't going to like that either." said General Landry.

"Who says that this information has to get out into the public domain in the first place?" asked Prime Minister Blair. Inwardly, he also was thinking the same thoughts about if the knowledge of magic and the wizarding world got out. If these folks even knew.

"Maybe it doesn't anytime soon. But, I'm talking about being prepared for what will happen when it does." answered General Landry.

"Well, let's establish a special committee then to study this with just that concern in mind. But, Generals, I think that we will have to include in that, possible plans along a path where these things are true, and demonstrable, and that we have to let the truth stand on its own merits. If the truth changes our beliefs, perhaps our beliefs do need a refresher." said Prime Minister Blair.

"Beside, let us remember that this gods business is hyperbole that started here in this room. They've never claimed to be gods. They have even explained how many of them have died due to plagues and war. Sure, apparently they can also choose to 'ascend' as they call it. But, obviously those that don't do that can bleed and die like the rest of us. And I didn't hear them claim otherwise." said Doctor Jackson.

...

About three weeks later, Adam reported to Harry from all segments of the program that preparations were ready for a launch to Chandilar. During that time he had personally took the Destiny through the hub to Pegasus and back to personally test the system and experience it first hand.

So then Harry contacted the Eldest over inter-galactic sub-space to verify everything was still a go on their end. They confirmed it was and Harry said then they will launch soon and make for rendezvous at the orbit of M'Kraan's moon as planned.

Harry contacted the Admiral and told him to meet him with the Ha'tak fleet of three hundred ships at the rendezvous point at the Avalon trans-sub-space aperture. Harry would be joining him from the ACS-102 Javabli and a fleet of one hundred additional Destiny class battleships, for an armada of four hundred one ships total. The Furling wanted to make an impression, Harry thought this out to be suitable enough. The Furling Eldest and his retinue would rendezvous with them aboard the colony ship flanked by two additional Destiny battleships for escort.

Once all ships were in position, he gave the Admiral orders to send the fleet through one ship per minute, with fifty Destiny taking point, followed by his fleet of three hundred Ha'tak, after which he will bring up the rear with the Javabli and the remaining fifty Destiny. Then he turned it over to the Admiral to take it from there. The whole process took just about seven hours to get the entire armada through the network and arrive at their destination exit aperture in the NGC3109 galaxy.

After contacting Fred and George to thank them again for a job well done and thanks for not letting the network break any of his ships, he gave the Admiral the order to take the fleet to M'Kraan.

Having arrived at M'Kraan about eight hours later, with the full armada prepared, the Eldest and his people transferred over to the Javabli for a more comfortable ride and so that he and Harry could go over plans and speeches one last time. It had been a long day so they just enjoyed dinner and some relaxation and a good sleep before beginning the campaign the next day.

The following day and about another day of travel through hyper-space later, the AE Fleet arrived in orbit of Chandilar. The Eldest had communicated ahead of time and let his agents and security forces at Chandilar know they were coming and to ensure there was no hostile or aggressive response, that the fleet that arrived with him were there at his request.

Upon arrival the Admiral immediately had two hundred and fifty six of their three hundred Ha'tak take up equidistant blockade positions in very high orbit surrounding the artificial sphere the size of a small planet. They actually did not implement or enforce any blockade, they were just taking position in readiness to do so should it become necessary. It would make quite the impression. The rest remained in a cluster in a stationary orbit serving as his command and reserve.

The fleet of one hundred Destiny battleships led by the Javabli, then ninety of the remaining Destiny fleet broke off into six groups of fifteen each and formed a lower orbital perimeter around the planet to illustrate they would tolerate no hostile actions toward their landing party. Then the Javabli command ship accompanied by the remaining ten Destiny class battleships taking screening positions all around her, approached and landed at the royal palace and senatorial landing platforms.

The landing party disembarked with two thousand HFR warriors and two thousand human soldiers flanking the Emperor and Eldest's retinue as they departed the Javabli. As the arriving party began its march toward the main receiving building a large group of the Eldest's agents and supporters met them at the entrance, flanked by thousands of protesting Shi'ar which were held back behind rope lines and security shields by Furling security.

The Eldest advanced and greeted the leader of his advance guard and agents as well as addressed several of the leaders of free aligned worlds that came out to meet them, who were influential in the senate whom had asked for the Eldest to come and form a new government.

Having exchanged brief greetings, the advance guard escorted the Emperor's retinue into the facility, whereas one thousand each of the HFR and human AE security took up positions outside the entrance to secure it, and the remainder continued to follow and flank the Emperor into the meeting hall, with large groups breaking off at all egresses to establish security all the way from the entrance to the place the Emperor will be visiting.

Harry entered into a vast hall with cathedral ceilings that had to be a two hundred fifty feet high, with ten levels of decks extending out from a thousand suites that were the diplomatic offices and meeting places for the one thousand senators of the economic cooperative. All of this surrounding a large raised platform serving as a dais for the government leadership in the middle of the chamber.

Harry let the Eldest lead the way since he obviously knew his way around. Frankly this part was mostly his show anyway. The Eldest stepped forward first to take the main podium with his retinue to his right, and Harry and his retinue to his left. The Eldest was received with thunderous applause that lasted ten minutes. Apparently, as beneficial as the economic cooperative had been, most if not all of these races really didn't like rule under the Shi'ar very much. Of course the Shi'ar were brutal dictators, using slave pits and condoning slavery in general as punishment for dissenters. The Furling, or as these people had known them, the M'Kraan aka Scy'ar Tal, was hailed as a liberating hero and seemed beloved by nearly everyone there.

The Eldest managed to get the crowds to settle down and began a lengthy speech wherein he actually came forward with a bit more of his people's history so that they could all openly refer to them as the Furling from now on. The time for that charade was over now that the Alterans were here to back them up.

He explained the Four Great Races Alliance that his race was a member of for over forty million years prior and introduced them to some background on the Nox, the Asgard, and the Alteran of the Avalon Empire who is the eldest and most powerful of their ancient alliance. He introduced Emperor Harry Enki Janus Potter of the Avalon Empire and explained that he was responding to the call from this body to form a new government by entering the economic cooperative into the Avalon Empire, and that for this sector of space, their three galaxies, would henceforth be known as the Furling Sector of the Avalon Empire. There will be a Furling Civilian Governor overseeing the government and justice, and an Alteran Fleet Admiral overseeing the military and security of the sector.

He had to pause for another ten minutes as the crowds of senators applauded the news.

The Eldest explained that the Avalon Empire is immediately deploying a fleet of four hundred capital ships to defend Chandilar and to patrol and defend the security of the entire sector; and that in time that number will grow when and as needed. That consisted of the three hundred mother-ships that were at that moment in equidistant orbit of Chandilar and the one hundred battleships that accompanied the Emperor there.

Finally, he explained that the remaining Shi'ar presence on Chandilar was being deported to their quarantined home-world, effective immediately. And that the positions and duties of the affected officials and workers will be taken over in a smooth transition by two million new officials and workers that are human form machines possessing an advanced artificial intelligence. That they are so good that you wouldn't even know they weren't human if we didn't tell you, or if you do something stupid and try to lift one of them up.

He had to pause again this time for some applause but some laughter as well.

The Eldest then thanked Emperor Potter for committing the resources of the Avalon Empire and for bringing his benevolent rule to this sector of space, to restore and maintain peace, justice and order throughout the known universe. Then he turned it over to Harry for a speech, to which Harry received equally welcoming applause, then following the formal protocols the Eldest called for a vote of no confidence in the former royal family, which was approved nearly unanimously. Then Harry formally accepted the Eldest's nomination to assume the right to rule and the responsibility for security of the economic cooperative, and called for a vote; which was again nearly unanimous.

Harry then announced that at the conclusion of the meeting, his security forces and the new human form machines will begin the deportation and transition process for the Shi'ar government staff immediately.

Thus began the long, arduous and often dirty process of rounding up the recalcitrant population of Shi'ar, having each HFR that was taking a given beings position absorb their memories in order to efficiently take over their duties (refer to how the Asurans did the same), and then one hundred thousand at a time use the colony ship to shuttle them to Aerie. Disembarking them to the surface was not as problematic thanks to the matter transporters. It was, 'thanks for your service to the empire, now get off our ship.' They would have quite a story to tell whoever the new leaders of the Shi'ar in exile were.

Another interesting side effect of that operation was the vast wealth of other Shi'ar knowledge and in many cases secrets that came with absorbing those memories. They would literally know where all the bones were buried and quite a bit about other secret little projects hidden here and there throughout the sector. Not to mention the valuable strategic information from the hundreds or thousands of Shi'ar intelligence operatives that were undercover in covert positions within the government. Some valuable information indeed, all uploaded, indexed, and analyzed by a central computer artificial intelligence as fast as it could be absorbed. This made quite a laundry list of new work for the two new governors.

...

Harry only spent the next several days at Chandilar meeting and greeting key people that the Eldest wanted him to meet. The busy work of going over programs and laws and other work that had been piled up waiting for a new government would be left to their new governors. One of the tasks that the detachment of novum Alteran scientists, administrators, and Imperial Knights that Harry left behind to support the Admiral was to learn all they could about the political situation in this sector and about all the different races and cultures. To make a report to him when they were ready of the diverse worlds, their strengths and weaknesses, with any suggestions or priority issues that they identify should get his attention. As always, when they work on assimilating new worlds into the Empire, resources needed to be assigned to gather as much new scientific knowledge and technology as they can, to add to their own body of knowledge.

...

At the end of all that was necessary for Harry and the Eldest to personally participate in, Harry gave last minute instructions to the Admiral and made sure he was settled into his work as needed. Then he took the Eldest and his retinue aboard the Javabli and returned them home to M'Kraan.

On the trip back Harry took the chance to have some private conversation with the Eldest and asked him what he knew of these so-called cosmic powers that the Kree and Skrull told him about, beings called the Celestials, the Horde, and the Watchers; and someone called Galactus, if he knew anything about those.

"There have always been secrets about the universe that we were privy to that you were not, all because of our duty and knowledge of the Nexus. We were never able to reveal everything we knew of it to you because we were not permitted to by our High Council, which ultimately even during the height of our old alliance, remained ensconced at temple on M'Kraan." answered the Eldest.

"Your race is older than us, but for some reason it appeared that you had not been touched by any of the cosmic powers or the races of celestial powers in your own history. So, there was no pressing need to discuss them with you. At the time, things were in a balance as they were meant to be. Or at least they were on our side of the universe." said the Eldest.

"But, things have changed now. With you accepting the eternal vow to protect the Nexus with us we will certainly tell you all that we know. I have also grown concerned from some of your stories that perhaps in the absence of both our races that some of these beings have since interfered in some way with the evolution of your Avalon home-world on Earth. I know that you mean to investigate that possibility and I will help you." said the Eldest.

The Eldest paused to see if Harry had any questions so far. He didn't, he was listening in rapt attention, glad to finally be speaking to someone about this who seemed to be an authority on the subject.

"First, there is more to the Nexus than you already know. Let me start with that. You possess a quantum mirror which allows you to access the Nexus and see into or travel to and from alternate realities by way of the Nexus. But, that is not all the Nexus is capable of nor its entire purpose." said the Eldest.

"As you know the Nexus is a convergence point of all the different realities. There is a Nexus crystal like ours in every reality and universe. If one universe's Nexus were to be destroyed for some reason, it would not effect the whole of the Omniverse per se, but that one universe would collapse into a black hole singularity until fully devoured back into the Nexus, ending that universe, that reality's existence. I believe you already know most of this." said the Eldest.

"But, the Nexus also has a special permanent pocket dimension for lack of better term, although it's not really a dimension. It is more like the one place in all the realities that is common to the Omniverse, actually the reality. The point of convergence itself. It is commonly referred to as the White Hot Room which contains a permanent Neutron galaxy. It is a realm that serves both as the afterlife for all realities and the base of operations for the Phoenix Force." said the Eldest.

"What is the Phoenix Force?" asked Harry.

"To answer that I need to explain what is essentially the high level diagram of the celestial hierarchy. First there is the One Almighty God and His Angels, that stands above and encompasses the entire Omniverse. Contrary to some popular belief the One God does not interact individually or directly with any of the universes. For this, he does use his Angels from time to time. But for cosmic matters his hierarchy begins with the Phoenix Force." said the Eldest.

"The Phoenix Force is one of the oldest known cosmic entities, representing life that has not yet been born. The Phoenix Force is an immortal, indestructible, and mutable manifestation of the prime universal force of life. Born of the void between states of being, the Phoenix Force is a child of the Omniverse. It is the nexus of all psionic energy which does, has, and ever will exist in all realities of the Omniverse, the Guardian of Creation, and a de-facto guardian of the Nexus or M'Kraan Crystal as it is known by in this galaxy. The Phoenix is among the most feared being in the entire universe - having the power to cut and regrow any part of the universe, as well as destroy it entirely, which is part of the Phoenix's purpose: 'The Judgment of the Phoenix:' to burn away what doesn't work. Recent interventions of the Phoenix suggest that 'what doesn't work' is what has become stagnant instead of naturally evolving." said the Eldest

[ marvel wikia com Phoenix_Force_(Earth-616) ]

"Well, you sort of blew my mind with that one. We had no idea such forces existed, which honestly is part of the reason my ancestors started the Destiny project fifty million years ago. They detected something but could not decipher it. I am beginning to believe you are about to complete that project for me." admitted Harry.

"I will come back to the Phoenix Force in a minute. Because there have been a number of recent events surrounding it that have made quite the change in our reality, for the better. But to understand that, you need to understand a little of what went wrong. And that, will answer most of what your intended question was regarding the cosmic powers you've heard so much about."

"The first thing that went wrong began the moment our universe was born. The Phoenix Force of the previous universe, or I should say the avatar of the Phoenix Force in the previous universe since there is really only one Phoenix Force, but many avatars for it. Tried to preserve what was left of human life in the old universe during the moment of its death and rebirth into this new one. In doing so, it created a new cosmic entity in our universe based on the soul of the last human to live in the previous universe. We don't know if the Phoenix knew what it was doing or not, but ended up creating at the moment of our universe creation, the entity Galactus who was born with an hunger that could only be sated by draining living planets of their energy. This of course before any living planets had even begun to form. Which is how he got his name. In his beginning he sated himself on the swirling gases and nebulae that are indicative of the formation of galaxies." said the Eldest.

"Now I don't want to try to recap the life history of Galactus, because you and I wouldn't live long enough to tell that tale. So, to make a long story short the entity became a ravenous, raving lunatic that went about doing exactly what it needed to do to survive. No sense mincing words about it. But there's more. Shortly after that, in cosmic terms, three races of cosmic powers evolved over a billion years ago. These are the Celestials, the Horde, and the Watchers." said the Eldest.

"The Horde are essentially the anti-thesis to the Celestials, and the Watchers more or less try to maintain the balance between the two by watching out for any interference from them because all three cosmic powers are not supposed to interfere with the ordinary development and progress of sapient species in the universe. Unfortunately the Celestials do it all the time. But they have certainly paid for that. There were once billions of Celestials, but one of the first mortal species to evolve called the Aspirants tried to get rid of the Celestials for all their meddling and killed billions of them with a god killer super-weapon they created. Eventually the remaining Celestials killed all the Aspirants and no one knows what happened to the super-weapon." said the Eldest.

"To round out and complete the celestial hierarchy as the races of the universe in our sector of the galaxy would understand it. Around five million years ago the Celestials created another pair of cosmic races called the Eternals and the Deviants. The Eternals were meant to be defenders of life and the Deviants meant to be destroyers of life. This was their attempt to restore a balance by creating opposing powers. The Eternals eventually begat the Titans, the Titans then begat the Olympian and Norse gods of Earth legends. The strange thing is that all of this was happening here in this galaxy and our sister galaxies. I don't know how the legends of the Titans on down came to Earth. The obvious answer would be that someone who traveled from here to Earth brought those legends with them. But we know of no such event and nothing you have shared with me in the database of Earth's history indicates such an event either. But, it is what it is. I'm sure we'll come back to that too. Pressing on with the story." said the Eldest.

"Eventually the Skrull who had been genetically experimented on by the Celestials came to rise up and in one manner or another vanquished, killed, or deposed all of the Eternals and other Deviants that came before them, including the races of Titans, Olympians, and Norse gods-lesser cosmic powers all. You see the current Skrull civilization is what evolved from what remains of the Deviants that were created by the Celestials. Today they are a pale fraction of the power they were then because they were diminished over time by subsequently fighting war after war with other races and fought many civil wars among their own kind, and then finally through machinations of Galactus and some of his heralds and his otherworldly cosmic power allies and enemies." said the Eldest.

"In any case, the point of telling you all that background and bringing it back to Galactus is because more recently it became apparent to the Phoenix Force that the presence of Galactus in this universe and the antics he got up to was instigating the imbalance in the activities of the three big cosmic powers and from there everything subsequent that they wrought." said the Eldest.

"So, and this happened during the past thousand years during the era that we were deposed and the Shi'ar supposedly 'guarded' the Nexus. When the once damaged Phoenix Force (a story for another time perhaps) had restored itself fully it sought out Galactus, the great imbalance of the cosmos, to correct its own mistake in trying to save a portion of humanity from the previous universe." said the Eldest.

"It lured Galactus to the White Hot Room, its home in the Nexus. Once lured into the White Hot Room Galactus' hunger as well as his powers were neutralized and the Phoenix Force froze him in time. He is effectively imprisoned there now. With the butterfly effect of his meddling finally ended, the Phoenix Force was able to return to the universe and focus on preserving the balance between the big three cosmic powers, the Celestials, the Horde, and the Watchers, all of whom listen only to the Counsel and fear only the power of the Phoenix Force which is the Omniverse's avatar of the power of the One Almighty God in each universe and reality." concluded the Eldest.

"That is quite a story Eldest. It answered many questions, and made me think of a number more. But, then as I understood it, most of the cosmic powers and rogue entities who possessed cosmic level power which the races I've recently met have so much fear and anxiety over, are for the most part gone or receded from the scene now. Is that correct? Does that mean that the era of their interference and reasons to fear them are now over, or am I missing something still?" asked Harry.

"I mean it sounded like the Phoenix Force wrapped up the Galactus problem finally in a neat little bow." added Harry.

"Well in a sense that is true. Most of the other races don't fully know what happened to all of those other powers and less even as to why. Most of our unique knowledge comes from our access to the Nexus itself and our own innate psionic powers. It is true that we do not need to spend every waking moment fearing cosmic interference from the big three, even though those beings are still out there; nor from the Eternals, the Deviants, or the other cosmic powers." said the Eldest.

"You've met what is left of the Deviants, and you can tell me if there is tremendous need to fear them anymore. They themselves became what they originally were because Celestials experimented on humans to create them. At this point I think they are more wary of those powers than most. The cosmic power that still resides within their blood is their innate ability to shape-shift. There shape-shifting ability is of a mastery level that is second to none. But so long as they as a civilization no longer feel it is their born duty to destroy everything in their path which they have not for eons, they should not be the feared enemy they once were." said the Eldest.

Harry just nodded along, agreeing with that observation.

"Then there are still other remnants. Survivors if you will of the meddling and abuse of cosmic powers, especially the cosmic power of creation. Often by Galactus, and still by the Celestials. These powers often took beings from whichever race suited their fancy or created out of whole cloth, new or altered beings to serve them as messengers, soldiers, servants, or in Galactus' case what he called heralds. There are still a handful of these surviving beings roaming the universe, with cosmic super powers. On the whole though, without the backup of their cosmic power benefactors or creators, they are not unstoppable. You may from time to time encounter some of these, but they are individuals, not the heads of great armies. And some of them are actually benevolent. A few just want to be left alone because they never wanted to be altered by a cosmic power and forced to serve anyway. Most are how you would say, consider themselves in retirement." said the Eldest.

"So, at this point I would not worry overmuch about it. I wanted to give you a good explanation though because by and large you have come into this cosmic power business uninitiated and now have the responsibility for the peace and security of what, almost thirty galaxies now? So, lack of knowledge on your part is a bad thing. I will do what I can to keep you informed of matters regarding the cosmic should they arise again." said the Eldest.

"Very well then. I have some other related matters that interest me that I am still studying as well. I do intend to be prepared for any of this if it does come my way and not be too blindsided by it if it does." said Harry.

"What do you think of a hypothesis that the Celestials might have been the ones to cause our great plague in Avalon seven point five million years ago? I ask because of the timing. We who had been there for over forty-two million years suddenly experience a plague we cannot cure, which itself is suspect. We therefore abandon the galaxy and reset all life there, which they coincidentally come in behind us at the five million year mark and experiment on the new race of humans to create cosmic beings called Eternals and Deviants that went on to themselves create the primordial and terrestrial gods of legend, cosmic powers all; and these legends also exist on Earth although there is no actual evidence or direct memory of these entities interacting with humans on Earth and have themselves all been vanquished by the races of these galaxies." said Harry.

"I truly don't know. As you say, with the timing it is plausible. I don't know what their motivations would've been. And as you've said there doesn't seem to be any lingering evidence of their involvement on Earth other than the legends. The only humans there with extraordinary gifts, are your sub-genus of the original Lanteans that back-crossed with the humans of that day and it is certain is it not, that your gifts with zpe have come down to you from the Lanteans, not from meddling Celestials or Eternals?"

"Probably. Or that is to say, I believe the answer is yes in our case. But, what if there are other hidden or just otherwise unknown sub-genus of humans living in secret on Earth as the wizards do, that were altered millions of years ago or even just tens of thousands of years ago in their evolution? I know it's a rhetorical question. But, we have many species of zpe sensitive animals and other wildlife. Humanoid like yet different sapient zpe sensitive species such as giants, merfolk, veela, leprechaun, centaur (who believe themselves to be descended from Greek gods), goblins, fairies, nymphs, werewolves, vampires, dragons, and so forth." said Harry.

"Hmm. That is interesting Harry. I admit I have not studied all the native species of Earth. You make it seem much more diverse than I ever thought. My people have not been back to Earth in all that time, so there is a lot about it that we do not know. Perhaps we should study this. Even if it's not one of those powers, something unusual seems to have gone on don't you think?" said the Eldest.

"Exactly. Well, I have recently commissioned a program to study all of this. We are first going to create a nature reserve of all of these species that we can with the first aim to preserve them in case something goes wrong with their habitat or survival on Earth. And then we are going to study them comprehensively. You are welcome to join us in that study if you would like." said Harry.

"I think we will. That will be interesting. Thank you for everything Harry. I hope I was able to answer some of your questions and especially alleviate some of the anxiety you had over the things you've been hearing. Now, had you come around a few thousand years ago I would've said, watch your head. But, I 'think' things are well settled down now." concluded the Eldest.

...

Elsewhere, back on Earth, EarthGov Prime Minister Blair visited with the current UK Prime Minister to get them to contact the British Ministry of Magic so that he could talk to someone about Harry Potter.

They did so, and he spoke to the new Minister of Magic, Amelia Bones who confessed that she knew all about it of course. That Mr. Potter had even put out a press release in the magical press a few years back. Even announcing their new land at Terra Legato, along with a new school he started.

He explained to her the recent meeting they had with him wherein some of their Generals had become maybe too curious about Harry and his people's background on Earth. The Prime Minister shared with Madam Bones everything Harry told her about their history while carefully keeping secret the existence of the magical world or any association of his with it, and then she said that a good deal of that was news to her.

If it were in fact true, the mainstream magical community had no idea about these ancient alien origins. And she doubted many would believe it. She wasn't so sure she was ready to believe it.

Prime Minister Blair wanted to know how he should handle this kind of secrecy in the future. Is it okay to brief some of his Generals on their existence or should they continue to stay clear of that? What of the connection between the Alteran race and the magicals? Didn't they want to look more into that themselves?

She told him to just keep the secret like they've been doing. That the way he and Potter handled it at their meeting was fine. But, that she needed to speak to some people and go off and think about what he said. And the left it at that for the moment.

...

When Harry returned to Earth he checked in on Kara and Clark to see how they were doing. He found out that Kara learned from her father about how the Crystal of Knowledge should work. So, he offered Clark a portion of land in Terra Legato to build his Fortress of Solitude with the Crystal, that way it would be safely within Empire territory even on Earth, unplottable and protected by their shields, and he would have no concern about EarthGov entanglements in the future, considering that all the land in the Arctic Circle Clark was originally considering to locate it in, is actually one country or another's sovereign territory. So, Clark accepted.

While he was there Harry met Chloe Sullivan, Clark's best friend, and Lana Lang who are friends with Clark and now were friends with his cousin Kara [Kent] as well. It was fairly obvious that Clark had a crush on Lana, while Chloe had a crush on Clark. Harry thought that was going to be amusing. It was also difficult to have a conversation with him with his friends around, who were not privy to his secret. Yet, the always quick on the uptake Miss Sullivan figured out who Harry was right way, and wanted to know how and why the Kent's knew the Emperor of the Universe.

"Uh, that's Emperor of the Galaxy, actually." said Harry.

"Well, uhm, alright make that 32 galaxies. But, it's not that big of a deal. Really, more then half of them are uninhabited." said Harry.

Kara came in for the save though. And grabbed Harry's arm. "Well, you see he knows them through me. I'm Clark's cousin of course, who Emperor Harry helped me find, so I introduced all of them. My parents work for a special branch of the government who works with extra-terrestrials for the EarthForce and I met Harry through them who told us he could help us find my long lost aunt and uncle, and my cousin. And walla. Here we are."

Harry just stood there silently hoping that worked and glad that Kara seemed to be as quick on the uptake as Chloe. And good lord it was almost the whole truth. Boy was he going to have his hands full with this crowd.

After a while the friends left and Harry had a chance to speak openly again. He learned that Kara is actually going back and forth to New Krypton every other week. This way the transitional issues of going back and forth are no big deal, her metabolism doesn't get too imbalanced in one way or another for long enough periods of a time for it to matter. Harry had his doubts about that and privately thought, now he should study that situation to see what happens. If he didn't already put far too much on Ayiana's plate, he'd have her track her progress. Anyway, the Kryptonian doctors should know what they are doing, why is he worried about it? Damned this Janus influence on his psyche anyway, he always feels like he has to study everything he runs across.

...

Back at Terra Legato for some personal time with Hermione, Harry got a status update from Adam for several things.

First, the expedition to the Alderson's Disk in the SMC reported in that all was fine, but possibly useless. They found it uninhabited like they thought. They think they figured out why as well. The entire place is filthy with exotic radiation. They can't get near the thing themselves except from behind the shields of their ships. They were in the process of externally mapping the entire complex and taking deep scan sweeps but wanted guidance on next steps.

Harry told them to just finish what they were currently doing and deploy a satellite grid network to maintain a watch on it and so they could continue to study it remotely. Then return. The thing was obviously damaged in some way. Perhaps it was never finished properly in the first place. They can take their time studying it.

...

With all that had gone on in the past year with these new surprise additions to the Empire, Harry put out an edict that they would suspend further exploration of additional galaxies outside the ones they had already begun exploring and bringing into the Empire.

They would complete the trans-sub-space network to all of the existing 32 galaxies now in their sphere of influence and build a second hub at a Lagrange point between two of the three galaxies in the Furling sector. The intra-galactic colonization in Avalon would continue as planned, the Destiny mission would continue as planned, but no more extra-galactic manned expeditions or explorations in the next group of neighboring galaxies, with a moratorium placed on it for ten years. So that, the Avalon Empire which had just finished rapidly growing to expand to thirty-two galaxies, seven of which were inhabited could focus on assimilating all the new races and worlds into one cohesive Empire, sharing culture, trade, and travel and just congeal for a while. The one new thing that recently came with the addition of the Furling sector which was something they didn't have a lot of worry about in past expansion, is that it came with thousands of new species or races. That is a relatively new challenge for Harry and his people, so they needed to allow time to properly absorb that.

...

One evening after dinner, near the end of the year, as Hermione and Harry snuggled on the soda just relaxing and enjoying some rare time alone together, they had a few visitors.

Three spherical balls of light appeared in their living room, drifted toward the floor and took shape into three beings dressed in white robes.

These were the ascended beings Nero, Oma Desala, and Ganos Lal. They came to explain to Harry that which he might not have sussed out yet, that with his fully purified Alteran DNA that he was going to live to be about one thousand to twelve hundred years old, but that Hermione, even with Alteran medical science would probably only live to about two hundred.

So, as a reward for Harry's acceptance, maturity, and accomplishments in reuniting the Four Great Races Alliance, purging their legacy galaxies of the Goa'uld and Wraith, and nurturing life wherever he found it; that they came to bestow a gift onto Hermione by uplifting her to fully purified Alteran the same as Harry, so that they could live a long life together. But, it is up to Hermione to accept if she wished it.

Hermione and Harry huddled and whispered to each other for a minute. Then Hermione said, "I accept. Thank you."

A/N:

-The Star Wars galaxy. In the Imperial Senate scene, one of the pods of representative races that is given a couple seconds or frames of screen time is a group full of the same race as the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and uhm, some people think that E.T. was from the M33 (Triangulum) galaxy, because (a) " In promotional material for E.T. the Extraterrestrial, it is stated that the little alien was "3,000,000 light years from home" when he was lost on Earth. Since galaxies such as our own Milky Way are only about 100,000 light years wide, he would in fact be an extragalactic being. A large galaxy, Triangulum is in the right distance to be E.T.'s home, meaning that Triangulum might actually be the Star Wars galaxy, a theory supported by the classification of Triangulum being a spiral, which is the galaxy type the Star Wars galaxy is typically considered to be. Additionally, the ship that appeared in E.T. looks quite similar to a Lucrehulk-class Core Ship, which may mean that the Trade Federation, Techno Union, or another wealthy financial power may have been key in financing Grebleips' expedition."; and (b) "The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum." Note: Andromeda would also be a candidate, but it is closer than 3 mly, around 2.5 mly. But it is also a spiral. Until we invent FTL travel and not just a little FTL but a hell of a lot FTL, any other galaxy easily counts as 'far, far, away.' This is just one more conjecture. As readers of my stories will know, in Alteran Gift I used the 'Caelum' galaxy for their galaxy which is a real galaxy also, because Caelum means Sky River in Latin, and Sky River is the actual only name ever given in Star Wars canon by one of the older races for the name of their galaxy. George Lucas has thus far refused to tell us, so no one actually knows. It's just fun to try to figure out. Which I am sure is part of the point. The other part is probably that he doesn't know either. LOL.


	18. Chapter 18

Readme: Introducing some new jargon to replace some tired old phrases in my efforts to keep track of which people are what sub-genus of Alterans or Humans. So, 'Alterans' are Harry/Hermione, the Lanteans, and all children of the 'Novum'. The 'Novum' (m for magical) are the new magical Alterans who are not fully Alteran (but are trained at the Academy). The 'Novah' (h for human) are the rest of humans of the galaxy that have been given the added ATA gene during the massive colonization (which can also include others on Earth who happen to have been born with it by chance). And of course 'Human' are the rest of the ordinary humans without ATA genes or magic.

Ahhhh. Okay, so odds are that I forgot to follow-up with something in this chapter. There's always time for it next chapter. So, if you think I left something dangling from ten years ago in the storyline, please (gently and kindly) remind me. It is possible I left some things out on purpose so if you are nice to me about it I will be nice about that in return. :)

Chapter 18

About 10 years later..., September 1, 2011

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.

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During the past ten years, the Nox returned to active participation in the Alliance, serving on the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal for the Avalon Empire; and serving as Special Representatives of the Emperor to member worlds that are in conflict to broker peace. The condition for their service was-no capital punishment. So that now, a duplicate of the Nox hidden floating city also existed in the atmospheres of Javabli and Chandilar, as the home and protection for their people now living and working in those two Capitols. Therefore, a change was instituted empire-wide and the Phantom Zone became the prison for all capital crimes where it was determined a life sentence with no parole was indicated. The Phantom Zone was modified to allow the ordinary passage of time so that beings sent there would eventually age and die, and not be rewarded with immortality.

New Krypton remained the wardens and keepers of the Phantom Zone on behalf of the entire AE and an outpost for their caretaking of this responsibility was set up on a planet with a red suns in each AE inhabited galaxy for more efficient administration; thereby affording the Kryptonians colonies supported by the Empire in each of those galaxies as well. For all other felony crimes of life or near life with parole, the guilty were still sentenced the prison planet Aschen Prime, where sectors were segregated to accommodate the life support needs of different species. Local planetary jurisdictions would still attend to short-term sentences and the rehabilitation of their petty criminals.

...

The Furling retired from their leadership role in the inter-galactic scene after serving two terms as Civilian Governor at Chandilar. Harry appointed the fast rising Novum Hannah Finch Fletchley nee Abbott as Civilian Governor of the Furling Sector, and the equally fast rising Neville Longbottom became Admiral and Military Governor. Additionally, in keeping with Fleet tradition of maintaining at least one unit of three battleships detached to the defense of every populated world in the Empire, a huge ship building campaign had ensued and there was now a capital ship fleet of forty thousand battleships spread out across the sector, nine thousand of which were assigned to Chandilar defense, sector patrols, and the Empire's main expeditionary fleet. One thousand of those were stationed at M'Kraan to guarantee the rapid response in the defense of the Furling and the Nexus. During the buildup, all of the old Ha'tak class vessels except the one still retained by the Imperial Knights as the base for their Citadel we scrapped and recycled. The Al'kesh were all maintained since they made very competent inter-stellar government shuttle craft ideal for small missions and transportation when stargate travel wasn't preferred or available, which was usually the case in the Furling sector. All the Al'kesh ring transporters were upgraded to the latest Alteran matter transporter technology.

In addition to those capital ships, the Empire helped each of the thousand separate races of the Furling sector upgrade and build smaller fleet support ships staffed and flagged under their own respective commands, with there now being about one hundred smaller support ships of cruiser, destroyer, frigate, transport, supply, and shuttle varieties to every one capital ship. For an entire sector military presence including support ships from all member worlds numbering into four million, and of course there was a civilian merchant fleet that dwarfed those numbers.

Back at Avalon, with there now being some fourteen hundred populated planets, nearly all human, there had grown a proportional number of capital ships to around five thousand, eight hundred of which were assigned to the Capitol Atlantis, which still orbited Javabli. Pegasus still made due with its original force of one hundred twenty Asuran and four Aurora class. However, the Asuran shipyards which had quadrupled in numbers as well as many more new ones distributed throughout the Empire, played a key role in the expansion of ship building to meet their growing needs. All shipyards just continued to build almost non-stop since there was always a place to deploy new ships. Harry appointed Dean Thomas as the new Alteran sector Admiral at Eskal, while Harry himself took on the mantle officially as Grand Admiral in addition to Emperor. He did this at the advice of many Counselors and other experienced world leaders, because he did not want to risk divided loyalties in the future possibly leading to division in command and control of the Empire's military.

...

Early in the decade there was a discussion within the admiralty including leaders from among their most advanced member races about if the Destiny Mk II battleship platform was still ideal to be considered their base fleet capital ship going forward. It was concluded that it was still because of its mission versatility, however its hull type would be officially downgraded from battleship to battle-cruiser. From any one Destiny class the capability existed to support and defend an entire colony if necessary. And as Harry proved you could even use the resources of one to start a colony because of the wide range of mission capabilities he gave it. And most importantly, powered by three ZPM, as pure firepower and defenses were concerned there was still no other capital ship of any race in the Empire that could best it one on one, and only with few exceptions even ten or twenty to one. It's only real weaknesses were small crew and transport capacity and it's three shuttles were more useful for assault, transport, and standoff than for intercept.

Therefore, with the Emperor's blessing, the admiralty decided they would commission the design and construction of a new Dreadnought size Carrier-Battleship beginning construction the following year. It would leverage the best of Alteran technologies of course, as well as the any unique best-of-breed technologies that some of the member worlds would bring to the table. They would initially build five hundred of these, four hundred fifty to become the flagship of each of the AE's four hundred fifty, one-hundred ship full battle groups of Destiny battle-cruisers, the remaining fifty would remain stationed as Capitol defense and reserve at Javabli, Chandilar, and Eskal.

This new flagship would also be the first ship in the Empire designed from the ground up to meet the life support needs of a broader cross-section of member species, and therefore the first designed to be crewed by large inter-racial crews. Therefore along with that, the Empire commissioned the building of a new Starfleet Academy (oh yes, I did) on Eskal that would take recruits from any member world in the galaxy. There was also an research and development annex adjacent to it that would focus on overcoming the unique challenges of all these different cross-species living requirements that the Chandilar experience didn't already teach the engineers. Altogether, this program made the Empire's first true inter-galactic melting pot above and beyond what even Chandilar accomplished.

Owing to the ever growing amount of inter-galactic space travel, Harry commissioned two more trans-sub-space networks separate from the original. The original remained privileged government and military access only, but they opened up two more to serve as an inter-galactic superhighway of sorts, dropping the access restrictions, allowing and encouraging merchant class travel to encourage trade and cultural exchange throughout the empire, since they restricted non-governmental access to inter-galactic hyper-drives.

...

The Asgard had begun reproducing, and the first baby girl was named Ayiana, and the first baby boy named Harold, in honor of their Alteran saviors. With their territory secure, the ability to grow again, the return of the Furling, the Nox coming partially out of isolation, and the relative great strength of the Alterans and their empire. The Asgard decided to begin re-colonizing the Ida galaxy and with the AE's blessing took over the remaining twenty percent sector of Avalon galaxy space in the previously unclaimed regions and began to re-create some permanent settlements there too. The Asgard still had mighty warships, but the vast building campaign of the Alteran's meant that their contributions were now dwarfed by them and many other races in the AE. They continued to maintain a presence in defense and support of the Kree and Skrull in their galaxies in the Furling sector as they had become good friends with those races with their continual presence helping to continue smooth over the rough edges of those two ancient competitors working together. They maintained a token amount of warships throughout Avalon in Javabli and Eskal, but they were no longer trying to match pace with the AE militarily and focused the bulk of their energies on expansion of their own, to rebuild their civilization. With the blessing of the AE, the Kree, and Skrull, they would soon start expanding to some colonies in the LMC, Andromeda, and Pegasus, so that some broader range of activity and colonization would resume in those three galaxies.

Technically, the Asgard nor the Nox had fully joined the Empire as the Furling had. They maintained their official independence, preferring to continue to simply be referred to as Allies. But in many respects they acted as though they were officially part of the Empire. During the past decade when the scope of Alteran power as well as the growth of peace, freedom, order, and trade were apparent to all, the Tollan and the Tok'ra who each only possessed their one home-world, petitioned and were accepted into the Empire as official members. This had the added benefit of adding Tollan representation of the AE Science Council and their participation in the AE's new ship and weapon designs. With the Tollan agreeing to accept the ATA gene, the AE immediately absorbed another already advanced human population of two million who were ready to send some of their people to the new Starfleet Academy. Several other non-human independent races, a number of younger races who were long away from being qualified to join the inter-stellar community and/or were still not united yet, and Earth and its four colonies which Harry never intended to press; Harry and Hermione were the rulers of all they surveyed (so far) in the local group of galaxies.

...

Although Harry believed he had most of the answers his ancestors were looking for in the Destiny project, he allowed it to continue. Because its secondary mission was still valuable, exploring all the galaxies it could, seeding star gates in a select few habitable worlds in each, sending home stellar maps and its findings regarding local sapient species, sowing a universal satellite communications relay and surveillance network, and so forth. Adhering to his own moratorium though, he did not bother to send colony ships to several of the Eden worlds Destiny uncovered along its path because it would not do to get stretched too thin. Although, the implementation work of his Sanctuary at Procul was long ago completed and he visited it once by way of stargate to inspect the results. He was satisfied that he had a place to fall back on that was out of reach of nearly everyone, if they needed it. He simply felt that the Lanteans left things get too close to oblivion. Their race might have become extinct altogether and the entire legacy lost. He wanted to do all he could to make sure that it doesn't come that close again.

The Citadel on Natania had trained three hundred forty-five Imperial Knights, and with his help they had each been fully outfitted with personalized multi-morph quantum nanite armor and a quantum nanite weapon pre-programmed to take the form of the Knights standard staff weapon, or one of their standard Pulse Phase Pistols or Plasma Rifles. With the help of one of the warrior races of a new member world, they had become experts in martial arts and fighting with pikes and staffs that they could summon at will along with their armor. These staves could also be used to channel their ZPE like a foci when they wished it to. It was quite something to watch a graduating class of new Knights, hurl themselves a hundred feet into the air into a somersault in mid-leap, landing in formation as one and striking the butt of their staves on the ground simultaneously channeling lightning bolts of plasma into the sky, as part of their graduating ceremony. Harry never went through any of this training so he was actually a bit frightened of his own Knights. But then again, none of them carried around enough quantum Nanites in their armors pocket dimension to summon an entire fully powered inter-galactic stargate out of thin air and drop it on him, and his personal raw ZPE power was still four times the strength any one of them possessed so he figured if it came down to it, what he lacked in finesse he could make up for with brute force.

The Novum population had grown to over eighteen hundred inclusive of the Knights, not counting their children who all count toward the now growing number of full-blooded Alteran. It was a momentous occasion when Harry finally realized that for the first time in over ten thousand years, the Alteran race was finally growing again. Since not long after Harry declared his ten year moratorium on extra-galactic expansion, many of them got the same idea Hermione did from that, which was that it was a good time to start settling down a bit to start a family. At about age twenty-five Harry and Hermione seemed to stop aging, which really wasn't the case but it was slowed down by an order of magnitude. They didn't advertise this fact because they didn't want to breed jealousy among the Novum. The fact was that since all the Novum couples voluntarily took their recommended DNA treatments before starting their families, all of their children would be born full Alteran as hoped. They couldn't do anything for the parents unless they wanted to start experimenting with their own race, which they did not.

...

Also, a few years ago the last Wraith Hive ship and it's Cruiser escort was found and destroyed. They had been laying low but starvation was setting upon them, so they took a gamble on what looked like their best opportunity. They attacked the four Genii colony worlds that had previously been the other remnant human worlds that left for New Lantea years earlier. The Wraith also hoped these less populated planets would be less defended and it would be easier for them to hit and run.

Unfortunately for them, while the Genii posed them no threat, all of those planets were under the watchful eye of the Intelligence network on Asura. When the Wraith attacked, they sent the Hive to one world, and the three cruisers to the other three. The panicked Genii immediately contacted New Lantea who was already expecting the call and pressed them for emergency help. The Genii were reminded that they wished to be left alone to fend for themselves and that New Lantea did not respect their military-dictatorship style of government. That if they wished help from them, they would need to agree to disband their government immediately after the conflict and join the New Lantea Federation as a member world and accept their government and their rule so that all the humans of the galaxy could live together in peace and freedom under Avalon Empire law. Otherwise, they simply wished them good luck.

The Genii leadership second-in-command finally conceded when their first tier of leaders were captured by the Wraith. Then New Lantea signaled Asura that the mission was a go, and Admiral Helia sent a small overkill fleet of twenty Auroras to take on the Hive, and five Auroras each to take on the three Cruisers. The destruction of the Wraith was all but assured so, Helia ordered the capture of the Wraith Queen so they could interrogate her afterward, then kill her.

While they were interrogating the Queen, the fleet landed their respective squadrons on each Genii world and held their leadership to their agreement to step down from power and be assimilated into the Empire. The old-school Genii leadership still cussed and had fits over it. But, the people themselves were all for it since they knew through the grapevine how much better the humans of New Lantea and Asura lived.

Therefore, the five Genii colonies which totaled over five million souls between them, were assimilated by New Lantea's much smaller twenty thousand human population, with a fair number of them dispersing to the five colonies to establish and maintain the new form of government. And with the fleet's ongoing presence and help, they disarmed the recalcitrant population which had all been considered part of the Genii reserve forces in one way or another.

With that done, their last mission finally completed for the memory of their fallen companions, all the human populations of the galaxy more or less united, and their security assured; Admiral Helia requested the Grand Admiral to contact the Emperor and pass on the request of her seven hundred and twelve Lanteans desire to retire from the military service and possibly begin to settle down themselves to have families and begin to integrate more with the other races of the Empire.

Harry and Hermione both came to meet with them and thanked them for securing Pegasus and finishing the Wraith. Harry acknowledged that they all stuck with it more out of a sense of duty to the former government of Atlantis and their lost contemporaries, but they would be honored for it today all the same. They discussed what the goals of the Lanteans were now, which was simply to live a peaceful life and to the extent it was in the cards some of them might pair off and start families of their own which would help the Emperor's overall goals of re-building their civilization.

Harry agreed to all of that, he just required them to spend one term at the Academy at Terra Legato, auditing whatever parts of the curriculum interested them and attend essentially one formal course that Hermione would custom make for them to give them an introduction to the Novum culture, history, and future goals-so that they would fit in better with the rest of them when they start integrating with the rest of the community. From there they could go wherever they want and do whatever they want as long as their children eventually attended school at Terra Legato, Atlantis, or one of the new Alteran colony worlds of which there were nine hundred throughout Avalon and growing. And that once getting through that introduction at the Academy (or graduation in the case of their children) they would each qualify for their own set of the new 'quantum armor' that they all heard so much about. That is if they even want it. It would be up to them.

...

Ayiana and Luna Longbottom nee Lovegood had built an amazing magical creature nature reservation on the planet Ramius, another of Harry's original former Goa'uld worlds that had been abandoned for strategic reasons. It was ideal for the reserve, as it also still had some basic facilities to get them started and to build around. Luna called her main office compound there, the Ark. The Knights had their Citadel, she could have her Ark. It amused her. They had accomplished getting several mating pairs of every non-sapient magical species and all their sub-genus that they could think of and find and began organically growing their own populations on Ramius. Some parts of the world were segregated off to allow the more dangerous creatures such as Nundu, basilisk, and acromantula to roam free without endangering the other populations. They also brought in many mating pairs of many of the non-magical animals from Earth that could become part of the ecosystem and food chain they were accustomed to. Now that the Ark was fully populated and began to be able to sustain its own population, Ayiana and Luna were scheduled to meet soon with Harry and a scientists from the Furling who wanted to participate-to discuss beginning the research side of the program.

Another side effect of the project was that Ramius became a popular vacation destination for families with young children because with some encouragement from the Empress herself, they created a zoo front-end to the program, which had recently begun growing into a resort and vacation destination front-end to that. The kids (of many different species from throughout both sectors of the Empire), loved it. Especially the demonstrations of all the unusual and amazing abilities of the magical creatures. Luna was not about to be a zoo keeper or tour guide though, so they allowed a civilian commercial business license to operate that aspect of things. They were soon expected to allow non-magical visitors from Earth to begin visiting the zoo as well, since EarthGov had just started experimenting with allowing some civilian and non-government merchant space travel to begin. When Harry heard about that he wondered how awkward that will be for someone (not him because he long since stopped caring) if some squibs who knew the origin of some of the creatures were to make that trip. With the standoffish and snobbish way the Earth wizarding community had reacted to his overtures to open up more travel, emigration, or even trade between the Novum and the Wizards-he thought he just couldn't bring himself to worry about it.

The wizarding did disseminate the information about their origin story passed down from the muggle EarthGov Prime Minister that Harry never bothered to share with them himself, and most of the people thought it was a crock of dragon dung. Mostly because that is what most of the government controlled press told them it was, and so the sheeple believed it as they usually do. So, when asked about this and commented upon it by passersby on the streets during one of his rare visits back to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade on an outing or two with Hermione, Sirius and Remus-he just answered-that is exactly why he never bothered to tell them in the first place. They don't want to believe it anyway. He reserved his efforts for those with an ear to hear as it is said, and that is the freshly trained muggle-born and half-blood. Which is why he has always and will continue to focus on that part of the community. He told them to stop asking questions they don't want the answer to.

In the past decade there had been a brief disruption to his Novum recruiting for the Academy of Advanced Magic. But, the ICW intervened conceding that since the bulk of those being recruited were muggle-born's or half-blood's that were not treated as equals in their culture in terms of career and political opportunities anyway, that they would just let it continue on. As it was, the Academy program was only recruiting a percentage of their muggle-born, not even the whole. So, at the end they just decided to stop debating it because they just didn't care. Harry always had the 'blackmail card' for their big secret hanging over their head, which he never threatened them with by the way, they all just knew it was out there. In all practical terms they couldn't do anything about it to prevent it or in retaliation if he chose to stop playing ball with them. So, they chose to continue to keep playing ball with him.

Which is frankly what Harry always anticipated the outcome to be if they got to that point and is one of the reasons he set the program with strict caps in the beginning. The way he is doing it is fairly non-disruptive and easy for them to just go along with; and there was some talk from both sides about increasing the cap he put on the program to allow more graduating students through and opening the program up to fairly recent graduates who originally turned down offers that came to realize their career choices in the wizarding world really wasn't that good. The Novum community, beginning with the hand-picked elite as far as Harry was concerned, even if they were considered the dregs by the backwards purebloods, would grow in Terra Legato and within the Empire over the millennia, both by attrition and organically and it was already succeeding to slowly but surely re-build a proper Alteran civilization. He honestly didn't care if the bulk of the rest didn't participate because he didn't really want them too anyway. The number of new fully Alteran children born to the growing Novum population numbered four hundred and forty so far; and he had just gotten word that the first Lantean pair had their first child. As far as he was concerned his master plan was working-the population was growing. Including the seven hundred twelve Lanteans, there were now one thousand four hundred and twenty-three total full-blooded Alterans.

One small bit of progress that came about from the debates was that Terra Legato and the ICW exchanged Ambassador's so that they would always have direct formal communications open to them in the future. For the wizards part, their Ambassador who was from Canada, just soaked in the atmosphere and tried to learn what this new Terra Legato culture was all about. Along the way, he was starting to get a bit of an eyeful of some of this other space business that the wizarding world has been dutifully trying to ignore, because living in Terra Legato that couldn't be helped. For the Novum's part, Ginny Creevey nee Weasley thought it was like some kind of punishment being assigned back to their old world as Ambassador. On top of everything else she had to listen to her mother screech all the time about her choices in life, unbecoming of a proper pureblood witch. Fortunately, she only went to see her every other weekend now so the damage to her eardrums was light. She also wondered if this was punishment from Hermione for her trying to get Harry into a harem with her all those years ago. Ah, well, she thought. It had still been worth the try.

And on the subject of children. In two thousand and four, the Crown Prince of the Empire was born-James Harold Potter (age seven). And in two thousand and six, his younger sister Rebecca Hermione Potter was born (age five). And in two thousand and eight, their fraternal twin brother and sister was born, Charles Wendell Potter (age three) and Lillian Monica Potter (age three). After the twins, Hermione declared she'd had enough of child birth (at least for now). So, the Royal Family had begun to flourish with Harry (31), Hermione (32), and their little Princes and Princesses, Jimmy (7), Becca (5), Charlie (3), and Lily (3).

The Imperial Knight detail that guarded the Royal Family now numbered forty, and they could break-down and re-constitute into teams as needed for the family's independent travel. They had one Knight Commander and three Knight Lieutenants for round the clock shifts, and thirty-six Knights for up to six per member of the family if they were to all go in six different directions for any reason. The Knight Commander also had a Knight-Carrier permanently attached to his command and therefore they had air wing and additional ground support when they needed it as well as it served as the base for their own detached forty Knight-Stealth Fighters. This protection detail of course included the Earl and Lady Granger who had taken up permanent residence in an adjacent apartment with the Potters, to help them maintain continuity with raising their children (grandchildren), when Harry and Hermione had to attend to their official duties, which were many and always growing. They were of course assisted by a large retinue of stewards and nannies, both human and human form replicator.

Harry had lived up to his promise to help the Imperial Knights design and then build their own unique brand of warships, primarily the Knight class Light Carrier which was capable of stealth and inter-galactic flight including the restricted worm-hole drive, with a complement of Stealth-Dropships and Stealth-Fighters, designed to take advantage of the unique skills and ZPE powers of the Novum. Each Knight-Carrier could deploy and support up to sixty-four Knights with their full gear and personal fighter craft and also transported three hundred eighty-four additional HFR warriors (six per Knight) to assist them in the field as necessary. Currently there were only ten of these Carriers with their air-wings built; plus they still had their one detached Destiny class battle-cruiser and one Ha'tak at the Citadel. Four remained in reserve on Natania and for training, while the other six were forward deployed throughout the Empire. One of course was permanently assigned to the Royal Family security and was led by Knight Commander Stewart Ackerly, one of Harry's inaugural fifty in their school club and was fiercely loyal to him and Hermione. One could always be found docked at Atlantis in orbit of Javabli. Almost always one could be found in orbit of Chandilar; and the other three were typically either on the way back to relieve one of those or on another special operations mission. Their reach would improve over time with their numbers. It had become something of a matter of tradition and point of pride now that all Academy graduating classes would produce twenty percent of their number, not one more or one less, to enter the Citadel and take on service as an Imperial Knight, in honor of the first class to so volunteer. There were times when Hermione had to step in from her position as Headmistress of the Academy to ensure that the Reserve Knights Training Corps (the RKTC) club in the Academy wasn't bullying other students into filling out their numbers.

...

Because of Krypton's advanced science and technological experience along with their civilizations experience successfully defending itself against invasions by the Kree, Skrull, and Shi'ar over their history, Harry placed Kara's mother Alura-El as co-lead scientist on the project next to Novum lead-scientist Katie Jordan nee Bell to design the AE's new Dreadnought size Carrier-Battleship combining the best of Alteran, Kryptonian, and other member races warship technologies. The result of Harry assigning a non-Alteran co-lead scientist was that more of the other newer member races became more open to participate as well.

Harry was fine with it all around because as usual he would always add his personal touch and have final say in the designs anyway. As it stood, Alteran technologies still surpassed most other technologies in the Empire, but there were some rather unique and interesting ways that others applied such things that he wanted to take advantage of; and there were a fair few member races who seem to have evolved for war who had their contributions and experience to add. Especially when some of those unique approaches exploited other unique advantages of a given races physiology or abilities, and therefore crewed as such those advantages can be wielded by the Empire.

...

After the first several Liberator class Carrier-Battleships were built and all of their new technologies and systems were tested and bugs worked out, Harry commissioned a new personal Super Dreadnought Mothership called the Leviathan-to become his personal flagship. It would also essentially be something of a city-ship for all of the capabilities, resources, family and other civilian support roles it would be capable of when deployed. Whenever he deployed on this ship, it was meant to be a home away from home, almost a remote Capitol and could provide all fleet and even colony support operations needed for an entire armada. The reason he had something like this built is for those occasions when he might need to personally forward deploy at a distance of many galaxies away from the safety and resources of home.

This ship took several years to build and was just being launched. Therefore, Harry was on the bridge of the Leviathan, in orbit of Bastion where it was built, reflecting upon a few other things that had changed so far in the past ten years or so.

He still can't believe he decided to build a ship that is sixty kilometers long. In terms of sheer area, The Leviathan was about thirty times larger than his Sanctuary city-ship on Procul. Ever since he saw the artificial planet Chandilar, he wanted to build something really big. Of course this thing is still dwarfed by that. He hoped he wasn't getting a Napoleon complex having looked at all the stuff the peacock's had done.

Oh, and wasn't that a mess. About two years into the past decade, the Shi'ar of Aerie thought they were going to run the blockade and get away somewhere to try to re-build a power base.

The Empire tried to let them live in peace, if not strict isolation. But, that was now a hard lesson learned. The Shi'ar were quite gifted military scientists that was for certain, and they might've been a touch insane because when they analyzed the sensor readings from their weapon after the fact. It was clear that it would've seriously injured anyone on their own planet that was not shielded or below ground. At the end of the day they really couldn't fault the Commodore, although the Nox led independent review committee had very soft-spoken harsh words for him.

The Shi'ar had invented some sort of Omni-directional sonic concussive doomsday weapon that would have the effect of temporarily disabling all unshielded ships in orbit of their planet as well as blinding the sensors and weapons targeting of even the shielded ships for a while.

Unfortunately for their plan, whatever it was, the Commodore, on his Liberator flagship in command of the quarantine fleet blockading Aerie wasn't about to let whatever just blinded his fleet and sent his support ships into a tumble-to get off that planet. So, not knowing when targeting would clear up he targeted the only weapon he knew he could hit down range on target with. He fired a full salvo of his four new magna-polaron ion 'planet killer' cannons at the planet. He wasn't likely to miss that.

The result was that the new cannons lived up to their name. They were called 'planet killer' as a form of jargon, mostly to impress upon people the power of the weapon. They weren't really meant to be fired at a planet, especially an un-shielded one. The effect was...rather devastating. The blast struck half-way into the mantle of the planet well past the crust, igniting the compressed magma gases. Not to mention the cataclysmic surface concussive force, the second to occur only within minutes of each other. Tens of millions died instantly. Hundreds of millions in the days after. A geyser of furious unending flame and lava pored out of the twenty kilometer diameter impact crater, accompanied by earthquakes. Ash and other heavy elements were thrust into the atmosphere and began what would become a very long volcanic winter for Aerie. This blast had the effect of an eruption of a super-volcano. The planet was not completely destroyed. That is, the wound caused by the cannons did not detonate the core or split the planet in two. But, the surface dwellings of Aerie were effectively destroyed and useless and the surviving population went underground. The only beings that didn't feel sorry for the Shi'ar were the Furling. They would never forgive or forget.

Nevertheless, as a result of the calamity the Empire's posture toward the Shi'ar relaxed into one of providing aid and assistance. They still maintained a blockade to manage the situation. They first deployed limited use of their exogenesis machines to clean the atmosphere and the surface of it's harmful particulate matter from the initial eruption. Then they organized a relief effort that included a number of former Shi'ar Empire dominated worlds who now wished to come to their aid. So, these were let through the blockade to deliver relief and aid. Meanwhile, at the Emperor's direction, the Governor's of the Furling sector, with assistance of a Nox mediator, met with the surviving Shi'ar leadership to discuss the future. They simply were not going to allow them to go back into the galaxy as conquerors in a military-dictatorship, spreading slavery again. With that said, if the Shi'ar wished to accept that and cooperate, the Empire would help them find a new uninhabited planet that met their ideal needs for an ecosystem and would help them build infrastructure and then move to a new home-world. They grudgingly accepted since they really had no choice. That is how New Aerie became members in full standing of the Avalon Empire, the people there simply being known now as the Aerie. Leaving the Shi'ar past behind them and everyone else. It was at that point that the Furling started to feel satisfied. Nevertheless the Eldest warned Harry to only let them in so far, they were not to be trusted. To that end, they were banned from military service.

Then there was all that business with Clark and his friends down on Earth. In the past ten years, the Potters kept in touch with the Kent's, and of course participated in a certain amount of formal liaison whenever necessary between them and New Krypton. Clark had grown to a young man of twenty-four and no longer stumbled around with his super-powers. Since his body had been soaking up yellow-sun radiation since he was a toddler, his strength and abilities far exceeded Kara's or any other Kryptonians when they visited Earth. Clark's Argosians aunt and uncle came to visit him every year on his birthday and Kara had taken to just keeping a room at the Kent's and on New Krypton and just going back and forth whenever she wanted since it was so easy to do.

As promised, Clark used his Crystal of Knowledge and built his Fortress of Solitude in Terra Legato, about ten kilometers north inland of the Academy. They also moved his space ship up there so he had it nearby as well. With Clark growing up in a relatively stable environment and circumstances, he got to know his birth father Jor-El quite well and they developed a good relationship. When Jor-El learned all about the Avalon Empire, how Harry had saved Argos City and helped them build New Krypton, he was no longer of the same opinion he was before all that happened where he used to think it would be up to Kal-El as the sole-survivor to be savior of the world. Plus, it was clear Earth itself was not now like he last knew. So, no hidden agendas ensued. It turned out that the crush between Clark and Lana went no-where and he and Chloe started dating mid-way through high-school. With her being brought into Clark's secret by their junior year, since being an alien didn't have the same stigma that it might have just twenty years prior. They were now engaged.

Harry and Jor-El collaborated on a custom design for one of Harry's 'quantum nanite' armor suits, that would allow Clark to travel to any environment under the influence of any sun, and the suit's AI would automatically compensate for the differing types of solar energy and radiation. With the effect that now he could travel off-world and engage with the rest of his people on that basis. He had to have the armor deployed the entire time he was under a red-sun, but he could now go there. It wasn't so bad really because he could will the face portion of his helmet to be transparent so that everyone could see him and hear him just fine. They also integrated his House of El master key into the suit and using it's quantum properties Harry was able to charm it and the suit to behave the same way a suit does for one of his Novum. Clark could summon or dismiss it at will. Thus he would never lack for it when he needed it. And along with it came the House of El master key and a copy of his father Jor-El's AI, which could communicate with him via his suit's AI. It was all very handy to have.

So, it turned out that Clark decided to keep his permanent home on Earth with the Kent's in one place, and at the Fortress of Solitude in Terra Legato for another. But, also he intended to take up a military career on New Krypton. As a favor to Clark, Harry made an exception and let Chloe get the ATA injection so that she could come and go with Clark off-world and use all their technology as necessary. She didn't have any big plans to go off-world a lot, but when they get married, if he lived off-world for period of a time she wanted the option to go with him. She was still working on figuring out just what she would do for a career among all the alien civilizations. She really did want to stick to news reporting and creative writing so she was looking for ways to do that, wherever Clark would be going. Clark never put on a blue suit with an S and red cape to become a super-hero and there were no super-villains infected by non-existent kryptonite meteors for him to take responsibility for, so he was planning on entering the Starfleet Academy on Eskal. Chloe really wanted to go with him, so Harry got her a choice job working for the Fleet News Service at Eskal. It wouldn't be long before her mug would be seen all over the GNN.

During this decade the EarthForce and EarthGov didn't expand too much. They got a good feel for inter-stellar politics, but came to soon realize that the Empire and Harry himself were much more concerned about inter-galactic politics, where they had no knowledge other than the scraps of news they picked up on their subscription to GNN, and no exposure themselves. They recently learned through the news and a set of updated Avalon galaxy political maps they received from the Empire that with the expansion of Asgard back into Avalon, there is no real unclaimed space left in the galaxy.

They had their Ambassadors meet along with the Asgard Ambassador and they asked about inter-galactic exploration opportunities for Earth. They knew that the latest hyper-drive engines they got from the Asgard about twelve years ago were capable of inter-galactic travel, but they didn't have any place to go. They needed maps and even more so perhaps some advice on where would be a good place to go that would have plenty of space still open to colonization, and where they should stay away from.

So, the Asgard gave them maps and double-checked their navigation computers and the Empire gave them advice and their blessing to feel free to explore the Pegasus galaxy. It was also considered Empire space but they only maintain a small footprint there themselves, on the order of really only seven star systems that they have actively colonized and maintain a military presence in. They gave them a brief history of the Wraith threat which they destroyed and the political star maps there as well. They did brief them on a number of other smaller independent human civilizations that still exist there free of the New Lantea Federation, which is wholly part of the Empire. They might try introducing themselves to those people. Most are pre-industrial societies, but are well versed in the existence of space and stargate travel, having been on the run from Wraith for millennia. They let them know that New Lantea is free to open up new colony worlds from time to time, as well as the Asgard were getting ready to begin some settlements there as well. But, they should feel free, just communicate with the others and everything should be fine on a first claim, first served basis.

To this end, the EarthForce commissioned the design and construction of a new class of inter-galactic battleship they named the new 'Enterprise' class. With it finally being time to scrap the original Enterprise, landing it on Earth to serve as their first inter-stellar travel museum.

The purpose of the new design was to allow the ship to operate, survive, and accomplish its mission completely independent of contact with EarthForce if necessary. It would also deploy with a limited capacity to start small settlements or outposts if they find any very valuable planets they want to claim or exploit. When it was ready to deploy to Pegasus, Colonel Carter would be commanding, with Major Hailey as XO (Colonel Mitchell would be taking one of her sister ships when it's built). Retired General's Hammond, Landry, and O'Neill would be on hand to commission the Enterprise and officially send her on her way.

Taking the example of the AE, Earth also commissioned the design and construction of several colony ships, these would be the new Littlefield class Colony ships that would make ready to follow behind the Enterprise if they find good worlds to colonize.

A/N:

-New space ship specs:

-Liberator Carrier-Battleship (Dreadnought) Specs:

-Dimensions: length 12km, width 5km, height 3km

-Personnel:

1,200 humanoid crew

4,800 HFR crew

3,200 Pilots and Airmen

10,000 Fleet marines

-tri-hull configuration; outer-hull ablative-reactive self-healing organic armor (courtesy of one of their member races)

-3 sequential rotating shield generators

-trans-phasic cloak

-matter transporters

-molecular construction devices

-anti-gravity engines

-sub-light engines

-inter-galactic hyper-space engines

-classified dreadnought class worm-hole drive (only the bridge officers and engineering were briefed into the existence of that drive aboard those vessels)

-powered by n9 overlapping ZPM power plants distributed throughout the ship consisting of 3 each in a series, each with one spare that would auto-hot swap if any one got below fifty percent. The hot-swap ready chambers automatically reload with spares from storage. The dreadnought will deploy with twelve spares in storage, for a total of twenty-four aboard each ship.

-Air wings and weapons:

4 fighter-interceptor launch tubes, for 360 fighters each, total 1,440

4 landing bays two on port and two on starboard

360 heavy bombers

340 assault shuttles for 10,000 troops

300 heavy plasma beam cannons

200 drone launchers, 2 million drones, 2 drone manufacturing plants

4 bow mounted magna-polaron ion cannon primary weapons (a combination of Kryptonian and Tollan weapon technology amped up by Alteran ZPM power sources and new highly classified deubarium emitters)

-720 missile launch tubes, 360 each port and starboard (will carry a variety of advanced missile technologies contributed by member races: standard electro-magnetic pulse barrage missiles, standard anti-matter missiles, advanced gravity displacement missiles, advanced concussive wave missiles, and advanced time dilation missiles)

-The bottom of the ship held large retractable launch bay doors for the six Destiny Mk II battleship escorts that each Super-Carrier possessed which could optionally be used to dock equivalent size ships from other member races. When empty the launch bays can double as a mobile shipyard for ship construction and maintenance, or can be engaged to dock bottom-to-bottom with another Super-Liberator class for hyper-space towing.

-The Liberator also has the capacity to dock up to twenty-four Destiny Mk II battle-cruisers or other same-size or smaller support vessels simultaneously when the Liberator is in orbit or station keeping detail. In that manner it could act as a temporary remote sector star base in some circumstances.

-The fighter/interceptor's are crewed by one humanoid pilot and are armed with a shield, cloak, two heavy pulse lasers, one heavy plasma beam, one anti-proton beam, twelve drones, eight standard emp or anti-matter missiles. The assault shuttles are armed the same and are crewed by two, a human pilot and co-pilot and can transport up to thirty humanoid soldiers with full mission gear.

-The heavy bombers are armed and crewed by three humanoid pilot, co-pilot, and bomber, with additional payloads of up to forty-eight of any variant of missile ordnance, and can optionally be loaded with up to sixteen large capacity bombs, including thermobaric, nuclear and non-nuclear bunker buster, massive ordnance air blast, massive ordnance penetrator, cluster, air-launched cruise-missiles, and cluster bombs.

-It is fully multi-mission capable with forward deployed scientific labs, research stations, medical and quarantine facilities, hydroponics bays, inter-galactic stargates, flagship and fleet command operations, light industry, light entertainment and recreation facilities, and can launch/retrieve satellites.

\- Leviathan Mothership (Super Dreadnought) Specs:

-Dimensions: length 60km, width 20km, height 10km

-Personnel:

60,000 humanoid or HFR crew

11,520 Pilots and Airmen, plus the complements for the daughter ships

40,000 Fleet marines

100,000 Other capacity (daughter ship crews, family, passengers)

-tri-hull configuration; outer-hull ablative-reactive self-healing organic armor (courtesy of one of their member races)

-5 sequential rotating shield generators

-1 drone shield cocoon, consisting of 256 automated drones, 200km radius, powered by mini-ZPMs

-trans-phasic cloak

-matter transporters

-molecular construction devices

-anti-gravity engines

-sub-light engines

-inter-galactic hyper-space engines

-classified Leviathan class worm-hole drive (only the bridge officers and engineering were briefed into the existence of that drive aboard those vessels); the only ship in the Empire that could open and sustain an inter-galactic worm-hole for other ships to travel through.

-powered by 60 overlapping ZPM power plants distributed throughout the ship consisting of 20 series of 3, each with one spare that would auto-hot swap if any one got below fifty percent. The hot-swap ready chambers automatically reload with spares from storage. The dreadnought will deploy with twelve spares in storage, for a total of twenty-four aboard each ship.

-Air wings and weapons:

8 fighter-interceptor launch tubes, for 1,440 fighters each, total 11,520

16 landing bays 8 on port and 8 on starboard

16 Knight-Carriers and their air wings

720 heavy bombers

680 assault shuttles for 20,000 troops

300 heavy plasma beam cannons

800 drone launchers, 16 million drones, 8 drone manufacturing plants

32 bow mounted magna-polaron ion cannon primary weapons (a combination of Kryptonian and Tollan weapon technology amped up by Alteran ZPM power sources and new highly classified deubarium emitters)

120 heavy tractor beams

120 heavy molecular constructor beams

-2,400 missile launch tubes, 1,200 each port and starboard (will carry a variety of advanced missile technologies contributed by member races: standard electro-magnetic pulse barrage missiles, standard anti-matter missiles, advanced gravity displacement missiles, advanced concussive wave missiles, and advanced time dilation missiles)

-Not to be outdone by any simple Liberator class, taking a page from its book since it is essentially the same hull-plate just scaled up, it's bottom hanger carried eight Liberator class Carrier-Battleship's and of course their own complements of air-wings, and six Destiny class. In effect, the Leviathan was a fleet all to itself.

-While the ship will have a vast amount of humanoid as well as HFR crew and military support, he decided that this ship would not have an independent Captain. He designed and implemented a unique combat artificial intelligence keyed only to Harry and Hermione's commands. Therefore, no one could wrest control of this ship from him.

-It possesses huge cargo holds of refined materials including trinium, naquadah, neutronium, and a hidden supply of deubarium and quantum Nanites.

-In addition to all the expected ship and military support decks and spaces, the Emperor had several full decks dedicated to hydroponics, water reserve, medical, stasis, and quarantine; the royal family and imperial knights; a family living deck (for officers and crew with embarked family, includes schools), a cityscape deck (restaurants, shopping, pubs, recreation, casinos) aka 'the cruise-ship deck', and an industry, trade, and commerce deck (including hundreds of docking arms).


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Timeframe: Fall 2011 - Summer 2012, concluded.

Harry met with Ayiana, Luna, and Brother Madah from the Furling to go over the Ark research, which did turn out to have some tie-in's to Ayiana's research into the sapient ZPE disorders lycanthropy, vampirism, and to a lesser extent squibs.

The squib issue was not a disorder per se, just a dilution and luck of the draw from the basic genome, same as some of the other back-crossed many times removed cousins that occasionally got the ATA gene as well.

As much as Harry and Hermione didn't want to admit it, apparently there was some correlation to the pureblood wizards belief that inbreeding kept up their inheritance of magic. It does cause other problems to be sure, but luckily for those with the strongest innate abilities with ZPE many other genetic defects seemed to right themselves or the symptoms didn't present. So, they were lucky in most cases.

The muggles who were squibs and carried the ATA gene were simply those who maybe only had one or two ancient ancestors back-crossed with a full-blooded or half-blooded Alteran from their time ten thousand years ago. Whereas the bulk of the magical community was continually maintaining and increasing the odds of new children possessing the ZPE and ATA genes by limiting or pre-disposing their inter-marriage with others known to have those gifts because of their isolation. Really their isolation in general was the key, as it is with all populations with one or another dominant genetic trait that is less frequently seen in others of the same species. They also did from time to time take in the muggle-born with ZPE so that they did strengthen their gene pool over time, such was the case for Harry himself for instance.

All of that was interesting and just basically followed logically from the science. Ayiana thought she could create DNA therapy that would help squibs gain access to ZPE. She would also impress upon the community that it was unwise to shun them, but instead would've been good to continue to have active ZPE people marry and reproduce with squibs because even though they didn't present the ZPE themselves, they still had the same chance to pass it on to their offspring. But in any case she thought she could deal with that.

The rather controversial findings were in the study of the ZPE sensitive creatures in Luna's zoo as well as Ayiana's study of the DNA of lycanthropes and werewolves. She was able to trace out the fact that they both exhibited foreign modifications to their genome that would not have occurred naturally, meaning that someone performed genetic experiments on some segment of the human population and some of the animal kingdom between one million to five million years ago, even before they were back-crossed with ZPE.

Could she fix it? That is cure these people of their disorders and rid them of these problems with gene therapy? Partially, yes. She believed she could treat them such that their presentation of symptoms would cease. In the case of werewolves, simply not turning during the full moon. In the case of vampires, they would each die instantly since they are essentially already dead, just animated corpses kept in the resemblance of life by a parasitic virus that as bad luck had it for everyone else, requires human blood to survive. Also, not that this matters for the vampires, but she could not cure the werewolves such that their reproductive DNA would be improved. In other words, they would still stand a good chance of passing on the defect to their offspring. So that sadly she said that lycanthropes with this disease really ought not to reproduce. Unless they wanted to embrace it and be sent to form an isolated community of their own where they could hurt no others.

Harry and Hermione decided they would need to think on all of the implications of decisions surrounding that. But, in the meantime, there was a real big new glaring problem that needed to be investigated to see if a trail of breadcrumbs might lead to something worse that needs to be dealt with.

That is the question of whom tampered with Earth human DNA between one and five million years ago while the Lanteans were ensconced in their lives in Pegasus and well before any of them ever returned to Earth.

And who did they know might've been around during that time meddling in such things. This wasn't public knowledge, Harry had only shared what he learned with Hermione, but they both thought the same thing. Those darn celestials. Harry privately posited this to Brother Madah who agreed it was time to bring the Eldest into this discussion.

Meanwhile, in an effort to round out their study, Ayiana asked and then Harry voluntold Sirius and Remus to work directly with Sirius and Harry's old Goblin contacts to broach a watered down version of what they are studying to see if they would surreptiously aid them by allowing some of their own people's DNA to be tested. As well as helping them creatively obtain samples from other non-human sapient magical species such as merfolk, centaur, giants, even nymphs, dryads, fairies, or whomever they could convince without harming anyone or preferably alerting the ministry or the ICW to their work. They would be paid well in pure gold bars for their trouble.

...

While Brother Madah was making arrangements with the Eldest and Sirius and Remus were off talking to the Goblins, the Department of Exploration came forward to ask Harry since it is now one decade later, would he be willing to lift the moratorium on the exploration of new galaxies.

He agreed but in a limited more sedate fashion than before. Just one at a time so that they limit the risk they take in the adventure. He also got one more update from them on the status of all the original twenty-six Voyager missions to Avalon's satellite galaxies. Then he issued orders to have each of them that were in uninhabited galaxies (except the Draco Dwarf which was to remain his personal secret), to find the best planet and star-system to settle on and have some of the next set of colony ships from Javabli assigned to start one colony in each galaxy, using the additional resources of the Voyager's to assist them. From there, those colonies were to grow and spread out across their respective galaxies in their own time in the name of the Empire.

Then they were to recall all the Voyager's to Eskal. The bulk would remain in reserve and since they had more than half a pinochle deck's worth of them, they would send a baker's dozen on future explorations since they would have the spare capacity. Future expeditions would all go so much quicker that way.

...

Harry wanted to know. Is there a secret celestial manipulator leftover on Earth from five to one million years ago just hiding out... responsible for mutations, spreading the legends of the Titans, Sky father gods, and other pre-historic legendary figures, etc? Exactly what is going on? What are the missing links in the history of Earth that would answer all of the current mysteries? Only one in the mortal realm could find out.

The Eldest agreed to commune with the Nexus using his privileged access and his advanced psionic powers to peer into the history and development of Earth over the eons in an effort to try to answer some of these questions. This would take him some time. He told Harry that he will get back with him to explain his findings as soon as he could.

...

In the meantime, Harry met with Hermione and the ICW Ambassador in Terra Legato to conclude a conversation they once started about possibly opening up their enrollment.

"Hello Ambassador Tremblay, it is good to see you again." said Harry.

"Likewise, Emperor. Thank you for seeing me. The Empress runs a beautiful school here and everyone here is so open and nice." said Ambassador Tremblay.

"Thank you. I wanted to finish up the conversation we had before. I believe you had a good idea about us relaxing our self-imposed enrollment cap. To allow in some of the people that we previously invited but whom originally turned us down to try their hands at careers in the wizarding world." said Harry.

The Ambassador just nodded and smiled in acknowledgement.

"But, I would like to take it one step further and open up the enrollment further, still invitation only you understand. We want to ensure we are only getting good qualified, proven intelligent, studious new students-but we want offer this to a larger population of graduates. We would open expand our initial list for consideration from the top ten percent as we do now to the top twenty percent. Plus, we would accept and give considerable weight to letters of recommendation from trustworthy headmasters of certain institutions. Schools like Durmstrang can simply not bother to apply considering they literally teach their student body the best ways to exploit the weak in society using magic, to get whatever they want. We will not tolerate that sort of behavior here." said Harry.

Ambassador Tremblay appeared in deep thought for a moment. Then said, "Emperor I think I may get some push back on allowing you to overtly offer consideration like this to all students in the top twenty percent unless we could get you to remove the requirement of having to thereafter take up dual-citizenship, live in the empire, and keep all of its secrets."

Harry seemed to likewise ponder for a moment and said, "Ambassador I could partially agree to that. I will meet you half-way and say that the decision to permanently take up citizenship and life in the empire is up to the graduate, volunteer only. But, if they choose to live in the empire, then they must keep our secrets." said Harry.

"You know, there are some that say that by allowing you to recruit from the wizarding worlds graduates at all, and taking some of our most accomplished students, that we are experiencing a brain drain on our society." said Ambassador Tremblay.

"I can see that, but it was my understanding that at least when it came to the muggle-borns and even half-bloods in many circles, that you didn't consider them a valuable resource in your society anyway, regardless of how well they did in school." said Harry.

"What is it that you really want?" asked Harry.

"Well, the pureblood faction seems to be quite rather taken with the idea all of a sudden of you taking all the muggle-born, not just the most intelligent of them." said Ambassador Tremblay.

"Really? Pureblood supremacy has risen that much now that they brazenly say such things in public?" said Harry.

"Well, not public as much as in the corridors of politics." replied Ambassador Tremblay.

"You know that we are not in a position to identify at an early age all of the muggle-born world-wide nor are we equipped to take them on as primary and secondary school students or even logistically prepared to go gather them up on a regular basis. You can't get rid of them entirely if that was your aim. We would still need you to continue to do what you do now and nurture them and teach them to practice magic safely until they graduate from your schools." said Harry, seeming a little incredulous that the Ambassador appeared to be suggesting what he was.

"That is fine. We still consider it in our own interest as we always have, for the maintenance of the statute of secrecy, to find all those who somehow exhibit magic from muggle families and raise them properly in the wizarding world so that they don't expose us needlessly." replied Ambassador Tremblay.

"Alright then, but it still has to be on a volunteer basis. We will not force muggle-borns to come live with us. We don't want anyone with us who does not truly wish to be here. And I promise you, any use of magic to force them or compel them or trick them will not work, we can and will see through all of that and that will be the start of new problems. But, if you can do that acting with reason and tolerance, we will agree to take all the muggle-born into the Academy and into the Empire so that they might have a better life with us." said Harry.

"I don't think that will be a problem in any case because as I understand it, word on the street is that just about every muggle-born wants to go with your way. I can't say that the way they are treated by many in our society, especially the government and the largest employers doesn't contribute greatly to that." said Ambassador Tremblay.

"Very well. We have an agreement. I will have our Ambassador Creevey meet with you to get this all on paper and when it is officially ratified by your ICW, we will begin to expand our program to accept the additional students." said Harry.

"Anything you want to add to this Headmistress?" Harry asked of Hermione using her official title for the school in front of the Ambassador since that was the subject at hand.

"Only one, well two. But, to be civil I will just say the one. Ambassador, I know you've been around here quite awhile now and know what we are capable of, so please impress upon everyone in your society that sending students here under compulsions, dark curses, or in any other way against their will, would be detected and firstly removed from said student and the full truth behind it revealed, but then we would also consider it a diplomatic incident. Please do not allow this to become an opening for some of your people to mistreat muggle-borns more than they already do. In fact, perhaps you could implore them to lighten up on them since they will know they don't have to deal with them after school. I will remind you that I, who am Empress of thirty-two galaxies, am also a muggle-born." said Hermione.

"Well done luv. I think you managed to make both of your statements quite clear in that one anyway." added Harry.

"So, Ambassador. Is that all understood?" asked Harry.

"Yes, Emperor. I am sure you will be satisfied with the outcome." replied Ambassador Tremblay.

"Very well." said Harry as he stood and they said their goodbyes.

When the Ambassador left, Harry turned to Hermione and said.

"That was very strange. He wanted that too much. There might be something fishy going on in the wizarding world. Do you think there might be another dark lord behind all this who, using different tactics than the last, is just using us to work out one of his problems for him?" asked Harry.

"Or her. And your right. There did seem to be an undertone there. I think it might be time to insert some espionage from the Empire directly into the wizarding world to keep a closer eye on things, don't you think?" said Hermione.

"I agree. I will get the Head of Intelligence working on that. It'll give our Ambassador something more interesting to do than listening to her mother tell her what a disgrace she is every other week as well." said Harry.

"Anyway, back to the Academy. What do you think this will do to our enrollment numbers in the long run?" asked Harry.

"We've done studies on this and kept up with the wizarding world's demographics in order to maintain contingency plans. So, if we implement everything we just agreed to and it becomes true that most of the muggle-borns do want to come live with us, then we are looking at probably doubling enrollment next year to about three hundred, and after fully phasing in the new program, probably up to five hundred new enrollments per year." answered Hermione.

"That works out to just over five percent of all wizarding world graduates on the whole doesn't it?" asked Harry.

"Yes, pretty much. It works out to about four-hundred twenty-five muggle-borns per year and about seventy-five half-bloods and the occasional pureblood as well; going by our current rate of acceptance statistics." replied Hermione.

"I'll leave it up to your expertise, but I think you might have to create a one-year remedial magic program for the muggle-borns we will take in that don't have a firm enough grounding in the basics to move on to our advanced curriculum." said Harry.

"Are you sure you're not ready to retire from the Headmistress job my Empress? You know it's been stretching you both ways to try to keep up with both jobs." said Harry.

"Well, the idea has merit. But, now I will wait until I see this expansion of the program up and running smoothly. After that will be the right time I think." answered Hermione.

...

Later that night, at home.

"Harry, I was wondering why you didn't mention the possibility of cures for squibs to the Ambassador today? Or the possible treatments for lycanthropy or vampirism."

"Well, a couple reasons actually. One, purely cynical. He seemed bending over backwards to give us more opportunity today for little in return. It seems that my original premise of our basis for who we recruit is just expanding to the rest of the same population. What they think of as the dregs, we think of as brothers and sisters. But, basically, I want to save those things as new bargaining chips in the future. If they want those from us someday, they can give us something in return for them. We won't make it too difficult for them, I just want to make sure that we use the leverage to find some way to improve the lives of ordinary witches and wizards and more openness toward us." said Harry.

"The other reasons are more practical. Ayiana hasn't actually created any of those therapies yet, so I don't want to promise what we don't yet have. Plus, I don't want to give them a whiff yet that we are studying them to that degree. That could become an issue itself at some point and right now I want to keep the runway clear for the team to approach the Goblins about themselves and the other sapient magical races." said Harry.

"Ah, that make sense." said Hermione.

...

Later that month the Head of Exploration met with Harry to give a status. By that point they had finished the startup of fifteen new colonies in the twenty-three designated satellite galaxies (three didn't need it because they were already colonized or quarantined: the LMC (home of the Kree and now some Asgard, some Kryptonians, and a little human settlement as well), the SMC (quarantined to keep the Alderson's Disk off everyone's grid), and the Draco Dwarf (quarantined by the Emperor's classified personal directive).

"We have your baker's dozen of Voyagers recalled, refreshed and ready for new assignment. I thought we could get started on the next new galaxy we should explore." said the Head of Exploration.

"A little eager aren't we?" asked Harry.

"Well, you know how it is, we hadn't a lot to do other than deeper and deeper exploration of these first twenty-three galaxies for a while now." said the Head of Exploration.

"Yes, but we found that small nest of what looked like Iratus bugs in that one dwarf galaxy didn't we? It was good we could nip that in the bud early on." replied Harry.

"Anyway, what do we have left after everything else from the list of unbound galaxies in the local group to explore?" asked Harry.

"Yes sir. We excluded the large number of satellite galaxies of Andromeda, which you said the existing Andromeda colonies as well as the Skrull and Asgard could explore in their own time. Then we also excluded the Furling sector galaxy of NGC3109 and her two satellite galaxies, and likewise excluded Pegasus for obvious reasons." said the Head of Exploration.

"That leaves us with eleven unexplored galaxies to look at that are gravitationally excluded from all the other large sub-groups (unbound), these are: The Triangulum, which also may or may not technically be a satellite of Andromeda but is considered not at the moment. And oddly there is the Pisces Dwarf that is equidistant from the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies so that it might be considered a satellite of either, or neither. So, for our purposes we still consider them both unbound galaxies. The others are quite a bit smaller and include IC10, IC1613, Phoenix Dwarf, Leo A, Tucana Dwarf, Cetus Dwarf, Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, Aquarius Dwarf, and the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular." said the Head of Exploration.

"First, I want to know who in the name of Hades named all these galaxies?" asked Harry.

"Well, uhm, sir." he started to sweat a little thinking this isn't something he should get in the middle of.

"The Empress, Lady Potter did sir." he replied.

"Why? I mean how did she even get involved with this?" asked Harry.

"Oh, well. Let me clarify, it's not that she named them per se, sir. When the new government and education nomenclature standards were worked on by a committee of department heads not long after you went public with the empire, officially coinciding with the start of the Academy. Lady Potter represented the Academy among the department heads and decided in this case that we should follow the existing nomenclature used by Earth already. That way, they would be consistent with what was taught in the magical schools astronomy classes, which already was fairly synchronized with Earth muggle scientists. In fact, that's where most of these names originated." said the Head of Exploration.

"Okay, never mind. I will ask her to explain the rest to me later. I was just curious." said Harry.

"Alright, getting back to your original question. Let's start with one of the smaller ones to get our feet wet again. Hmm. Give the Phoenix Dwarf a go. I like Phoenixes and would rather like to see what a dwarf phoenix looks like." answered Harry.

Ahem. "Very funny sir." said the poor Head of Exploration who was losing his wits around the Emperor. "Thank you sir, so then I should send thirteen Voyagers to begin the exploration?" he asked.

"Yes, it is a go." answered Harry.

...

Later, Harry made a personal visit to the Aschen sector and conducted an inspection tour of each planet to see how the progress was going out there.

"Emperor Potter, it is indeed a pleasure to see you again." said Governor Teal'c with a bow.

"Likewise Governor." replied Harry.

"I thought that since this program had congealed and hit a steady state a few years ago that it was time for me to make a personal visit and a tour of each of the planets." said Harry.

"It appears that the population of the four Aschen planets are pretty happy all things considered. Do you think that the people are reforming from the ways of their leadership?" asked Harry.

"I do. However, it will take time as we anticipated. I still recommend to wait a couple generations before opening up inter-stellar travel to them. I have some suggestions that might bring them closer to the culture of the Empire in the mean time." answered Governor Teal'c, sliding a holo-tablet over to Harry for him to review.

"I see. Yes, these are good ideas. I will approve each of these. Good thinking as usual Governor." said Harry, as he approved bringing Empire satellite news and entertainment services to the Aschen, as well as beginning monitored merchant trade.

...

After Harry returned to Atlantis from that trip he was barraged by several other departmental requests. One he thought was a fairly interesting development.

The Fleet wanted to permanently retire the four original Lantean Aurora class and his two original Javabli class saucer ships since they had been made obsolete. Moreover, the committee responsible for the recommendation requested they be landed, stripped of vital or sensitive equipment, and sent to serve as museums of the Alteran space program on select worlds.

Now, he knew it was time to start exploring again if they had time to open up museums. So, he agreed. First, one of each would go to Ramius to become two more of the growing attractions as a vacation destination for many of the Empire's families.

The Aurora would have displays, mock-ups and demonstrations illustrating the full history of the Alteran space program dating back to their separation from the Ori and departure from Celestis.

The Javabli, having originally been loosely based on Goa'uld design, for the purpose of the liberation campaign, would have similar displays illustrating the full history of the Goa'uld technology, their history, the unique Jaffa culture, highlighting the evil ways of the false Goa'uld without romanticizing them, culminating with their assimilation into the newly re-constituted Alteran hegemony in the form of the Empire.

The other Aurora's would go to Javabli, New Lantea, and Asura; and the remaining Javabli-class, the Eskal would go to Javabli as well. The people of Eskal didn't need their ego stroked, the entire operation there was a military, scientific, and industrial outpost for the government.

So it was that Harry noticed that they had developed quite a resort planet on Ramius. The word he received was that it's visitors and attendance continue to grow by huge numbers. He figured why not round it out with some water parks and contact Earth to see if Disney wanted to put something there. Ah, maybe some time in the future for that last one.

The final call he needed to return was from the Furling Eldest himself. He had finished communing with the Nexus and learned quite a bit that he would never have suspected and requested Harry meet with him soonest to go over it with him.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Harry hurriedly comm'd Hermione to let her know he wasn't going to be home that night. He was making a quick trip to visit the Eldest on M'Kraan.

"Harry, thank you for coming so quickly. I have a lot to tell you. I think we'll answer a lot of questions. We might open up a few new ones but I think I can explain most of what is has been going on now. I can't say that you will like all of it. Some of this I was unaware of myself until I went looking for it." began the Eldest.

"You have to understand that usually mysteries on the cosmic level normally simply remain that...mysteries. If it weren't for my race's unique access and abilities and our trust and friendship with you, I wouldn't have been able to acquire this information, nor would I be permitted to share it with you. So, I implore you to use wisdom and care in how you react to or disseminate any of what I am about to tell you." said the Eldest.

"I will Eldest. Thank you for your trust." answered Harry.

"I will need to give you certain background information on what these different beings are in order to explain my findings to you, so please be patient as I go through this." said the Eldest.

"To begin with the first question. Was there a celestial presence on Earth between one to five million years ago that performed genetic experiments on the native humans, and so forth?"

"The answer, to my surprise, is yes. You'll remember how I told you that the business with the Eternals and the Titans and their offspring the Sky father gods all happened in these galaxies and that I was puzzled why they were also known about in Earth legends, yes?"

Harry said, "Yes," and nodded his head affirmative.

"Well, as it turns out both statements are true. The Celestials did go to Earth around five million years ago and experimented on humans and other native species and a bit over two million years ago they created the Eternals there, as an evolutionary offshoot of humanity; these were beings possessing greater powers and longer life spans than the mainstream human race. For purposes unknown, they hoped to test the adaptability of the human gene, accelerating the evolution of a handful of subjects and gave them the genetic potential to mentally manipulate limited quantities of cosmic energy. Thus was born the race of Eternals. In a similar way, the Celestials also performed experiments that led to the creation of the Deviants, and this last part is very important, they also implanted latent genetic material in other specimens that would one day permit benevolent mutations in human beings." said the Eldest.

"The reason I emphasized that last part is because there was an intervention, which frankly I never anticipated. One that I believe missed some things in their clean up effort." said the Eldest.

"Really? By who?" asked Harry.

"By who indeed." replied the Eldest.

"Now that I've answered the first question and you have a basic idea of the who, what, where and when of that, I need to take you back a little further in history; and I daresay that when I'm done you will be rather shocked by some of it." said the Eldest.

"It was after the Celestials war with the Aspirants just under a billion years ago that the Phoenix Force declared that the big three original cosmic races were never again to interfere with the development of any of the other pre-cursor races." said the Eldest.

"Pre-cursor races?" asked Harry.

"Oh, you caught that did you? Yes, let me continue and it will be clearer in a moment." replied the Eldest.

"This rule held until five million years ago when a small group of Celestials calling themselves a Host came to Earth under the premise that you Alterans, yourselves being a pre-cursor race, had re-opened the door to cosmic meddling, by yourselves so meddling with the seeding of life, resetting of life, reseeding life again and so forth-as you did when your ancestors arrived in Avalon and then as you did again when they left Avalon fleeing the plague."

"Wait, did you say that we Alterans are a pre-cursor race?" asked Harry for clarification.

"Yes. Interesting isn't it? I mean, your ancestors always told us that your race was over sixty million years old, but how much older? Your race must at least trace back several hundred million years now, if not more. But, we'll get back to that because I think there is an interesting twist on that story for you as well. I have uncovered quite a lot." said the Eldest.

Harry's head was already spinning.

"However, the Celestials always stayed just across the line by not directly interfering with your race, but through manipulation of another, planted the knowledge of the existence of a new evolution of the human race in Avalon with someone that knowledge had previously been hidden from and let nature take its course." said the Eldest.

"Yes, I can see the realization in your eyes. The Ori, then sent a biogenic weapon to Avalon targeting the Human and Alteran genome, in case that was where the Alteran had gone too. For how else would a human race have developed there? The circumstances pointed to it, and the Celestials knew they would believe so. Having done so, the Ori actually quarantined Avalon from their own use, as it was then poisonous to them as well. They merely hoped they would get lucky with a long shot at taking out your ancestors faction... as you know they did, and it almost was the end. That part of the story I need not explain, but now you know how and why, and who ultimately instigated it." said the Eldest.

"I am exercising restraint in my reaction as per your counsel at the start of this, but I am just boiling inside right now. And why do I still have a bad feeling about all this?" said Harry.

"Because you should." said the Eldest.

"Your races actions were predictable to the Celestials and your retreat and subsequent second reseeding of human life in the galaxy served exactly the Celestials aims. You handed them a new human non-pre-cursor race, and left them to it, never knowing a thing." said the Eldest.

"Good lord, this is twisted." said Harry.

"Yes, but the story is only starting to get interesting. The Phoenix Force keeps track of large movements such as the development or eradication of an entire species or all life in a given galaxy, thus the avatar of the Phoenix investigated and eventually figured out what happened, including the Host's manipulation of the Ori which led to the biogenic weapon in Avalon."

"Now tying this back to your first question, by that time, the Celestials had already created the Eternals and Deviants on Earth, which got the attention of Gaia, the avatar of Earths life force. Earth's Gaia, an entity for whom there is an equivalent on every living planet, and normally never involves itself in matters of sapient life at all, called out to the Phoenix Force and prayed for mercy for her world and her sapient human life." said the Eldest.

"Despite the Celestials attempt at subterfuge to get around the rules, their actions on Earth were deemed unlawful interference by the Celestials against your race and thereafter the Celestials, Hordes, and Watchers powers to touch your race were thereafter bound, and that included psionic manipulation of any other species having anything to do with your race or any galaxy you inhabit." said the Eldest.

"They had nothing to do with your races creation or ultimate defeat by the Wraith in Pegasus, or anything that happened since then. That was all you." said the Eldest.

"At the direction of the Phoenix avatar, the Eternals and Deviants and their races of Titans and lesser cosmic beings were all moved to the NGC3109-Sextans A-Antlia Dwarf mini-cluster between one to two million years ago, which at that time had no other sentient life except a certain amount of the genetically modified human population they were required to bring with them from Earth - which became all the other races you now know as native races of this sector." said the Eldest.

"Does all of that mean as a pre-cursor race that we are forbidden from seeding new life as well?" asked Harry.

"Actually, no it doesn't. You could actually say it is one of your purposes in the grand design, the same for all pre-cursor races. The Celestials of course simply attempted to rely upon an self-interpretation of the rules that they errantly hoped would favor them." answered the Eldest.

"The key is that you just sow the building blocks of life, using your own genome as a template, without augmenting the genome with new or different abilities than you already have. Sometimes that can still lead to unanticipated consequences as it did with the Wraith. But in that case nature also took its own course and your race paid the price for it, without interference." said the Eldest.

"How about when we have reset the building blocks of life in an entire galaxy to create a more favorable matrix for our life or doing the same when terraforming a planet? Are we violating the cosmic law doing that?" asked Harry.

"Again, no. So long as you do not destroy existing sentient life when you do it. In galaxies where no sentient life evolved on its own beforehand, or the same with barren planets, that is fine." answered the Eldest.

"Your ancestors resetting of life in Avalon during their exodus was given a pass due the circumstances, one being that it was all dying anyway. And at that time no other non-human sentient life existed there beside the other surviving advanced races including mine, all which left into isolation; added to the fact that the whole thing was due to the Ori as unwittingly led into it by the Celestials." said the Eldest.

Harry appeared to be deep in thought, so the Eldest continued...

"At the request of Gaia, one Eternal known as The Forgotten One, once exiled by the other Eternals for interfering time and again on the side of humanity, renamed simply Hero, remained behind on Earth. He was hidden, to be called upon as necessary by Gaia to serve her in the physical realm to depose tyrants or other problems that might be caused by un-predictable cosmic imbalances left behind by the Celestials initial interference." said the Eldest.

"This is where we begin to answer some of your other questions and the importance of that statement I made in the beginning about other non-descript "...latent genetic material in other specimens that would one day permit benevolent mutations in human beings." said the Eldest.

"It is Hero's intervention from time to time blessed by Gaia that the legends of Titans, and the lesser gods and hero's were spread on Earth. In ancient times those legends were meant as a form of cover for his own activities, with himself being mistaken for legendary heroes like Hercules, Samson, etc." said the Eldest.

"He was hidden even from the wizards who began to evolve after the back-crossing with your Lantean ancestors began just ten thousand years ago, who also lost track of their own origins until you came along. Since then it has been the wizards, along with Hero, which has kept hordes of genetic monsters like werewolves, vampires, and other mutated human sub-genus from running rough shod over the world and other dangerous mutated beasts from Dragons to Nundu." said the Eldest.

"So, that would also make Hero the last living Eternal since the rest all died in the wars in your sector, right?" asked Harry.

"Yes, unless there are more hidden or forgotten ones here or there." answered the Eldest.

"Is he still there?" asked Harry.

"As far as I know. Yes. But you must remember, he remains hidden and does not interfere until or unless called upon by Gaia." said the Eldest.

"So then, Hero would be a being less powerful than say a Celestial but more powerful than even the legendary Titans that his race created? And he is still on Earth even today." Hmm. "Even though they can't interfere anymore, even the Celestials know he is still there don't they? That and they know that we are there and what we're doing, I assume. With all of them and the Ascended constantly looking into us, its amazing we are alive or have any free will left." Harry said.

"Did you say ascended? What do you know of them?" asked the Eldest.

"I know a lot more than I ever did about the Celestials I can tell you that. I understand your ancient reference to my race being pre-cursors. Now that makes more sense. My race learned how to bodily ascend to a higher plane, so from what you describe they would've been on that evolutionary path all along. They are like how you describe cosmic powers. They are immortal beings of living energy that can do cosmic level works of power. And that is something each member of my race can obtain with enlightenment and study." said Harry.

"Indeed. I was unaware you've had contact with the Ascended as they also live by the creed of non-interference. Although I was aware that many of your race over the eons had ascended." replied the Eldest.

"I've had more contact with Ascended," Harry said with a snort, "than most. But such contact is not widespread. There are only the occasional rare instances of interference. The half-ascended/Goa'uld Anubis entity was one; until a few years ago in his arrogance, in an attempt to seize power after the fall of the Goa'uld collective, he tracked me down with the intent of possessing me to take that circle another full turn. But he ran into more than what he bargained for and I killed him in self-defense." said Harry.

"You have the ability to kill ascended?" asked the Eldest, sounding incredulous.

"Shhh, don't spread it around." replied Harry, seriously.

"Seriously don't, and if we ever need to speak of any such things again let us go out of phase first for some guaranteed privacy." added Harry, blaming himself for the slip.

"But, there is one more point I want to ask you about. You say that our race is likely far older, into the hundreds of millions of years. Why is it that our recorded history which is passed down to us only goes back just over sixty million years ago?" asked Harry.

"Alas, I was afraid you would ask that. That I do not know. I was unable to learn why that is. I was curious about that myself. I believe that knowledge is being intentionally hidden." answered the Eldest.

"Would our Ascended know?" asked Harry.

"I don't know. If I were to simply guess I would say probably. But, considering whom I believe is hiding the information it is also very possible that they do not." said the Eldest.

Hmm. "I guess some things are just meant to remain a mystery." said Harry.

"Exactly." replied the Eldest.

"Any other thoughts or questions about any of this?" asked the Eldest.

...

"At one point before today I hypothesized that maybe the Celestials were the ones who genetically modified my ancestors to have our innate abilities with ZPE. Instead now I think I sense a different picture. If we are a pre-cursor race and have come to our own abilities and evolutionary path without interference, then I suspect they might simply fear what we could become, fear us as a potential future threat because of their war with the Aspirants who were the first pre-cursor race. What do you think of that idea?" asked Harry.

"I think you are coming to the right conclusion. Although it truly is difficult to say what motivates the Celestials. They seem to have done as much harm out of mere curiosity than out of malice. It's just hard to say." said the Eldest.

"So then, all of that brings me to the final set of points for further investigation relating to our current mutual study. And I think said investigation ought to be re-calibrated now with the aforementioned background. Which is that it is probable that the culprit for all these questions is the so-called latent genetic material left behind by the Celestials in native members of the human race on Earth from what was likely their earlier experiments before the creation of the Eternals and the subsequent intervention of Gaia and the Phoenix Force." said the Eldest.

"I suspect and it is this that I think we should try to set out to prove; that ancient primitive humans carrying those mutations, later crossed with the more modern/newly zpe-back-crossed humans, leading to these abnormal mutations you are studying. Probably everything from Goblins to vampires, to dragons, and kneazles. It needs to be proven and I think that job is for your Ayiana better than us, but it is there that I would look with the background I have given you on the rest of the cosmic history we now know of regarding Earth in that period." said the Eldest.

"You have my blessing to share this information with Ayiana and your beautiful wife of course; and make sure they know the importance of the secrecy of both the information and the source. But, it would be wise to not spread it any further than that. And if you ever find you may need to, please discuss it with me first so that we can see if it is appropriate or if even maybe there would be a better way around it. You see, the main issue is that it would be very bad practice for it to get around to the peoples of the universe, that we Furling can obtain answers to these usually otherwise hidden cosmic mysteries. We don't want a thousand more Shi'ar on our hands trying to obtain this power for themselves. Which they cannot of course, but many always die in the attempt on all sides." concluded the Eldest.

"Thank you Eldest. I understand completely and I am honored by your faith in me." replied Harry, with a bow.

...

A week after having returned home and having brought Ayiana and Hermione up to speed with what he learned (while out of phase for security). Ayiana was busy re-shaping her research taking into account this new background information. She was also furious to learn of the culprits behind the plague, but she would keep the secret. She knew Harry would do what was necessary. She would fight them best by doing the best job she could for Harry with this genetic research.

The Exploration team reported a finding in the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy. With so many Voyagers and their resources at their disposal they had already completed full stellar cartography and initial life sign scans of the entire galaxy.

They discovered a number of sapient human races. Many that are apparently space faring, and another that appears to be a race of machines. Astro vector analysis passed some intercepts and tracking information over to Intelligence for further analysis because it appeared to them that one large flotilla of human ships were being chased by a group of those machines in their ships. Intelligence confirmed that it appeared as though the human group was in some sort of distress and were trying to avoid the machines based on the limited amount of vector and intercept data they'd obtained so far.

"Do any of the Voyagers have a visual on the human flotilla?" asked Harry.

"Yes, we have one cloaked, maintaining station keeping within one light year, gathering intercepts and studying them." answered one of the Explorer Ops officers.

"What about their apparently enemy machines? Are we following them too?" asked Harry.

"We will be, inside of thirty minutes. We have another Voyager en-route to establish the same station keeping." replied the Ops Officer.

"Alright. Well, certainly we can't know right now who are the good guys or the bad guys in their conflict but, we know those are humans being chased by machines. I think the Asgard would agree with me if we err on the side of the humans just a tad as we go into this." said Harry.

"Sir, there is more. This is just in from stellar cartography and the probes. This flotilla's course can be tracked back to a single binary star system that contains a dozen planets, all smoking ruins surrounded by nuclear winter and a dozen more of those machine ships." said the Ops Officer.

"I think the picture is becoming quite clear." said Harry.

"Ladies and gentlemen, meet me aboard Leviathan in one hour, prepared to accompany me on an expedition to this galaxy so that I can personally see what this is all about. And keep updating the tactical situation and try to get as much technical and threat information for those ships for a full debrief after we launch." said Harry.

The room echoed "Yes, sir."

Harry left and comm'd Fleet HQ and the Capitol briefly what his plans were and that he was going to Terra Legato to speak to the Empress in person before heading out.

...

"Hi sweetheart, do you have a minute?" Harry said as he poked his head into Hermione's office at the Academy.

Hermione has several people in her office and piles of holo-tables piled up left and right, several screens busy with work.

...

After Hermione hurriedly dismissed her staff so she could see Harry he informed her of their discovery and his plan to go there in person with the Leviathan to see if what he thinks is happening, is happening-to help those people.

"Luv, you wouldn't be who you are if you didn't run off to go try to save those people. I know you came to see if I would mind. I don't. Now shoo and go save another galaxy, I have paperwork to do. Tripling our student body will do that you know." she said with a smirk, and a kiss.

...

Harry appeared on the command bridge of the Leviathan on schedule as did his exploration team. The ship was already prepped and ready for departure.

Harry engaged the Holographic AI Captain and established his own neural interface with it.

"Captain, take us out. Officers and Exploration team, meet me in my ready room." ordered Harry.

...

"Alright, someone begin telling me about this human flotilla and its capabilities." said Harry.

"Sir, the flotilla appears to be led by a single medium size hybrid battleship/carrier-class vessel approximately 1,255 meters long and 510 meters wide. It's external hard points consist of 32 cannons of unknown type, and many missile tubes. Scans indicate they possess nuclear weapons. The ship is propelled by a solid fuel that we do not recognize but is nevertheless apparently capable of a type of light speed or faster than light speed travel. The rest of the flotilla consists of what appears to be a rag-tag group of oddly shaped freighters and other civilian or merchant vessels, numbering two hundred twenty vessels that are not capable of light speed. The fleet is traveling at sub-light." said the Ops Officer.

"Well they sure aren't going anywhere very fast." observed Harry.

"Ops, based on the vector analysis that you used to trace them back to their dozen home-worlds, how long do we estimate they have been traveling like this?" asked Harry.

"Thirty years sir." answered the Ops Officer.

"Less then thirty light years?" said Harry.

"God, if they are running from something, they need to start running faster, or land and hide or fight or something." said Harry.

"Yes sir, we don't know how they could be keeping up with the solid fuel supplies they would need for such a journey, much less food and water." replied the Ops Officer.

"Have you scanned for how many people are in that fleet?" asked Harry.

"Yes, sir. Fifty-five thousand." answered the Ops Officer.

"God. If that's all that's left of these people from twelve planets!" exclaimed Harry.

"Captain, how soon until we arrive at their coordinates?" asked Harry.

"We will exit wormhole drive in five minutes, from there we will have them on visual sensors and be on top of them in five more minutes." answered the Captain.

"Good. Folks. Let's look sharp and try to help these people. I don't think I need to know anything more to know who's side I'm on. Let's get back to the bridge."

...

Five minutes later, the Leviathan exited wormhole drive.

"Human flotilla on visual sensors sir." said Ops.

"Got it. Bring us in slowly and let's try not to menace them. I probably should've brought a smaller ship for that. Oh well..."

...

Aboard the Galactica.

"Frak. What the Frak is that? All stop. General Quarters. Commander Adama to the Bridge." yelled Colonel Tigh.

As the alarm condition set aboard the Galactica and the entire flotilla attempted to make all stop, Adama was rushing to the bridge pulling on his officer's jacket mumbling, "Gods, what now!"

...

"What is it Colonel?" said Commander Adama.

"I don't know sir. It's big though. Astrometrics puts it at about sixty kilometers long, it appears to have dozens of landing and launching bays, so it's some kind of super-carrier or something." said Colonel Tigh.

"Has it appeared threatening in any way?" asked Commander Adama.

"No. I mean, other than since appearing out of nowhere five minutes ago less than one parsec away it has been steadily reducing speed on an intercept course for us. Whoever they are, they are here for us. But, so far we haven't attempted contact." said Colonel Tigh.

"Well, let's do so then. Comm's open a hailing frequency on all channels, broadcast in all colonial languages. Send the following:"

"Hail, incoming vessel. This is Commander William Adama, Commander of this Fleet and of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration and mean you nor anyone else any harm." said Commander Adama.

...

Back on the Leviathan... Comms reported that they were receiving a hailing signal from the flotilla ahead in multiple languages, one that sounded like a variation of an old dialect of Latin. Following standard protocol they began passively tapping the targets computer storage for information. But it was terse and sparse and apparently not well networked together at all.

Harry thought that was interesting since a number of those old dialects also related quite well to old Alteran dialects. He was beginning to wonder just where he might go that they weren't going to run into humans with some connection to Earth or from there to his people. Not that it's a bad thing, but shouldn't someone somewhere have a full accounting for where all these people are? Damn.

"Run it all through the standard neural translator nets and put me through on hologram to the bridge of the transmitting vessel." ordered Harry.

...

Back on Galactica...

The entire bridge crew took at least a half-step back, when the shimmering image of Harry appeared in his Alteran High Councilor, Grand Admiral, and Emperor finest.

"Hail and well met, Commander William Adama of the Colonial Fleet. I am Emperor Harry Potter of the Avalon Empire."

"Our recent probes to explore your galaxy discovered your flotilla and our analysis indicates that you are refugees that have been in space for thirty years, fleeing the destruction of a dozen worlds less than thirty light years from here. And we've noticed that you seem to be avoiding and on the run from a race of machines that appear to be following you that also have a number of their ships still menacing your former planets. So... we thought we would come lend a hand. I don't know who is right or wrong in your conflict, but I know genocide when I see it, and I am always inclined to take the side of living breathing human beings over machines any day, so how can we help you?" said Harry.

"Commander Potter, thank you. I mean no disrespect when I ask. How do you know so much about our situation already having just met us? Surely you could not see all that from your home-world or your ship?" asked Commander Adama.

"Sorry Admiral, but yes in fact we can. We have high-speed cloaked probes distributed all over this galaxy now and we have finished creating detailed stellar maps. Our original vector analysis of yours and the machines fleets appeared to indicate one was fleeing the other, so we sent two of our Voyager exploration vessels to shadow both your fleet and theirs, cloaked of course, from one light year away, trying to ascertain what was going on. Meanwhile our probes sent us detailed analysis and visuals of the dozen planets our Ops was able to trace back as your point of origin. The rest we simply deduced. I don't mean to be rude or condescending but our technology is many millions of years advanced of yours." replied Harry.

"Uh, okay. Let's say I take your word for all that right now. I would like to arrange a meeting with you and some of our other leaders if you really want to assist us. They will need to be brought into the loop. But, I should warn you that with us at a dead stop like this, our enemies, the Cylon's, the machine race you referred to, will catch up to us in less than a day and we don't have the firepower to stop a full assault from an entire fleet of base ships and protect our civilian fleet." said Commander Adama.

"That won't be a problem Admiral, we do. In fact. What I will do is position my ship the Leviathan, directly above your fleet at a distance of fifty kilometers. Then, please don't be alarmed. You will see a swarm of satellites launch from my ship that will encircle all of us in a cocoon that will place the entire flotilla, yours and ours under one very large shield dome; and I will launch a couple of our daughter ships to perform any necessary screening actions outside of our shield dome. If the Cylon's use weapons similar to yours and from our scans they appear to do so, they will not even scratch our shield. If that is not good enough, then we will return fire and your enemies will be destroyed. They would be foolish to make the attempt. But, we will be ready for them in any case. Then we can take all the time you want to talk." replied Harry.

"Very well, I will trust by the sheer size of your ship and the fact that your knowledge is dead on so far, that you can do what you say you can do. But, I will likewise be launching a full wing of CAP to maintain the watch as well just in case." replied Commander Adama.

...

As the Leviathan maneuvered and launched it's shield cocoon, Commander Adama was fielding call after call from members of the Quorum of Twelve and various ship Captains, wanting to know what that thing is and why they were stopped and what danger were they in and what would they do now, and on and on and on... He informed each of them that the visitors seem to be friendly and wish to assist us and that all the Quorum of the Twelve should make their way to the Galactic immediately to attend a meeting and have an opportunity themselves to ask questions of our guests who will be coming over as visitors soon to meet them.

Then gasps were heard throughout the bridge as giant fifteen kilometer long and ten kilometer wide hanger doors opened from the bottom of the Leviathan, revealing two huge in their own right carrier-battleship class Dreadnoughts, each twelve kilometers long. As they descended into maneuvering space, the Galactica bridge crew stood transfixed as these so-called daughter ships, each one at least six to eight times larger than the Galactica took off at thruster speed to maneuver into positions outside of the shield perimeter.

"What the Frak?" said Colonel Tigh.

"That's just a couple of the warships they have hidden in that behemoth? Gods, one of those could eat a fleet of Battlestar's for lunch." continued Colonel Tigh.

As he finished saying that they all watched as hanger bay doors opened on the bottom of those two Dreadnoughts, and twelve more, six from each, apparently some kind of Battle-cruiser, each almost as big as the Galactica if you turned them sideways and measured their wings for their length.

The ships and their own little fleets seemed to be settling in to a station keeping position and the show was over, so the bridge crew, all mumbling loudly began to return to their work.

Colonel Tigh turned to Commander Adama and said, "What do you think of all that Bill?"

"I think we don't want to piss these people off and I hope that the Cylon's do." answered Commander Adama.

...

A few hours and several exchanged communications to coordinate schedules later. The Emperor and his command staff in the company of sixteen Imperial Knight body guards, thirty-two Fleet marines, and another thirty-two HFR soldiers beamed into the landing bay of the Galactica. Where they were expected and greeted by Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, Captain Apollo, Lieutenant Starbuck, and various other retinue that consisted of a bunch of old grey-haired or bald men in white robes. These were either Priests or this Quorum of the Twelve that Harry heard about.

The group retired to a large conference room hosted by Commander Adama, with the Quorum of Twelve on one side and Emperor Potter on the other with some of his senior officers; Adama and his retinue on the other, and some of Harry's security detail and staff on the other.

This was the part Harry hated and would rather just sleep through. Everyone glad handing and painting on fake smiles and making speeches about why everyone was there and what makes them each so important, blah, blah, blah...

About after two hours of that, Harry began to field some real questions when the exchange turned interesting...

"So, you say that one of the key hopes of your expedition is to find the planet Earth where you think lives the thirteenth or lost tribe of your colonies?" asked Harry, for clarification.

"Yes, that is correct." answered Commander Adama.

"Can you take me back a step and explain why you think Earth is related to you or part of your colonies?" asked Harry.

They tried to explain that, mentioning various religious doctrine. It was plain that not everyone in the room really believed it but the majority did, and those that did seemed to brook no argument against it as if it were heresy.

Harry thought, 'oh no, here we go.' and he really wished he'd brought Hermione along for this one. Or better yet, she could've come and let him stay home. God, he was tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy with otherwise intelligent people's emotionally immature religious beliefs.

The room seemed to break down in argument over their attempts to even explain it to Harry and finally Commander Adama got the room back under control so Harry took a deep breath and tried to not sigh out loud and said,

"I know you all have just met me and many of you, possibly merely for religious reasons will not wish to believe me." started Harry.

"I hate to break the news to you like this but, you will need to know this for us to make real progress. Unless the Earth full of humans you look for is somewhere in this galaxy and just by coincidence has the same name as the one I know, Earth is one point four million light years away from the edge of this galaxy in another galaxy entirely. At present you have traveled less than thirty light years in thirty years, and nothing I've seen indicates to me that this ship or any other in your fleet could traverse the great void between galaxies. I can deduce a number of conclusions from that relative to your beliefs but there is even more simple fact to get into on that subject. However, I will pause there and let you react to that because I'm sure you were hoping for better." said Harry.

They descended into disbelief and name calling, while Commander Adama looked defeated holding his head in his hands, but apparently all too willing to believe it, while his son Captain Apollo was whispering to him, appearing to try to comfort him. There were many accusations cast about and cries of heresy and blasphemy, and one old person in a white robe said they should go to Earth anyway and order them to accept their leadership since they are one of their missing colonies, that they should have nothing to say about it.

Harry just sat there taking it all in, shaking his head. He wanted to yell at those idiots in the robes. They reminded him of other idiots he knows that wear robes all the time. He humored himself while he let them tire themselves out by idly wondering if this common way of thinking has some correlation to the type of clothes they wear. Anyway, he first wanted to address what he thought poor old Commander Adama was upset about. As things began to quiet.

"Before you all begin to despair that all hope is lost, nothing is farther from the truth. We will help you find a new home world and we can even help you find other human worlds if you want. If you really want I can even take you to Earth in the Avalon galaxy and introduce you to their leaders. Who knows, there are only fifty-five thousand of you maybe they will welcome you with open arms as refugees, if that is what you want." said Harry.

"On the other hand, if you go there with some of the attitude I just heard you espouse, I should warn you that there are over six billion of them plus their other colony worlds and just one of their most advanced battleships would tear through your fleet like tissue paper while you sat there and pounded nuke after nuke down their throat that they would summarily ignore while watching the blasts bounce off their shields causing them no harm whatsoever." said Harry.

"Or, if you will cooperate with me and let me help you sooner rather than later," 'so I can go home,' Harry thought privately. "I could probably in less than a day track down all forty of the Cylon base ships there appear to be in this galaxy, plus the place that appears to be their home colony which we've already discovered. Destroy them all, turning your old machines back into parts for your toasters as you like to call them. Then return with you to your twelve colonies, destroy any remnant Cylon forces that are on the surface there, use my exogenesis machines to clean and purify the atmosphere, the surface, and the waters of your planets, and you could just return home. Or, I could think of another half dozen possibilities between those." said Harry.

For once the room was almost silent.

"How can you do all of those things?" asked one old man named Sire Uri.

Another shouted, "You speak nothing but lies, blasphemy. Everyone knows that the Lords of Kobol founded all human life and that we are all one people."

Harry was getting angry and wanted to strangle some of these old men.

"Sir, my Empire is highly advanced. You could probably tell some of that by just my personal Leviathan mothership that I arrived in that currently protects this flotilla and some of the other things you've seen. But, as far as brute strength goes. Our empire spans thirty-two galaxies and over twelve thousand inhabited planets, many different human races as well as a thousand different non-human sapient races. Your enemy has about forty of these base ships you fear so much. I have almost fifty thousand capital ships at my disposal. But frankly, I will need none of them. Except for what I brought with me. But, the firepower and shields of my own ship are far more than a match for the technology of any race in this galaxy that we've detected so far." explained Harry.

"I understand that you've been raised to believe in the supremacy of the human race, with your colonies square in the middle of that. And as races go, humans are pretty good. My race is also a branch of the human family, so I'm partial to us myself. But, my branch is also over sixty million years old and originated in a galaxy on the other side of the universe. I can assure you that the lords of Kobol did not create us, and I also know for a fact that they didn't create the humans on Earth either, as they also predate your colonies that have existed for what two thousand years since the exodus from Kobol? Well the humans of Earth have recorded history of their own going back over six thousand years, and a pre-history going back over seven million years. I know that because my race was also there before they were." said Harry.

"These are all facts that I know with your religion and your education you are not prepared to accept. But, you will need to learn to accept that your branch of the human family is very young. Your gods did not originate the human species, they at most simply moved a small portion of your ancestors from somewhere else and brought you here. You'd be surprised how many times we have found that exact story to be true for thousands of other human and humanoid worlds across a span of galaxies." said Harry.

"Hell, you are talking about the twelve colonies and the one missing tribe of them that you believe is the whole of the human family, yet you've just recently in the past thirty years encountered about a dozen other human worlds you couldn't account for, including an entire small space-faring empire of these Eastern Alliance, and the list goes on. Yet, there they are. I can tell you our probes have found another couple dozen human worlds in this galaxy that you haven't stumbled upon yet. Some so far away you wouldn't reach them in your lifetimes at the speed you travel anyway." said Harry.

"If you can't accept that, and you continue to believe and behave as though only you can be right, then I would recommend you choose to let me simply take you back to your dozen worlds and safely get you set back up there again, because your self-righteous attitude that you have will not pass muster in any of the worlds that I know. I can tell you that if Earth is so important to you and you go there with that attitude they will probably either tell you to go stuff yourselves, or if they're feeling generous, they will give you a small continent on one of their lesser developed colony worlds and tell you good luck. And I already told you what would happen if you actually attacked them." said Harry.

"I don't believe any of the things you are saying." said Council member Anton.

"Well, you all decide what you want to do. I only came here to try to help you, not make speeches about the truth of the universe. You all can figure that out on your own. It looks like you all have some kind of democratic process, why don't you all take some time to debate this then vote on it, and let me know. We will wait around for a week for you to discuss this and vote if you want. Other than that, well I'd hate to leave you the way we found you with those Cylon's still after you, but it's your decision." said Harry.

"Wait, how do you know so much about us anyway? About our beliefs and our capabilities and all that?" asked Colonel Tigh.

"Well, for one we are very good with computers. So, we know everything you know that you have on your computers. Standard intelligence gathering. Don't look at me so shocked. You would do the same to me if you could. Just like anyone else we like to know exactly what we are getting into before we do. I also have eidetic memory and so I was able to clearly parse through all that verbal harangue of the arguments many of your Quorum members just shouted at each other, some of which was directed at me if not about me. I didn't miss any of it. I got a great deal from that. I'm really not impressed so far." answered Harry.

"Look, I get that as a people you are proud of your accomplishments and what you have done in the past two thousand years. Your space travel abilities and so forth. You should be proud. But, the problem is, and this is not really your fault. Due to your relative isolation from the rest of the humans in nearby galaxies let alone your nearby star systems, you just haven't gotten out that much yet and you still have much to learn. All you need to do is open your minds and your hearts to that and you will be okay. As it stands right now, I see a people that probably numbered in the tens of billions reduced to just fifty-five thousand. Let me help you get to a new home-world and slag these toasters for you. I don't care if you believe anything else. As big and as powerful as we are, we are a benevolent empire and we are not looking to expand here. I'm offering to simply help you and go on my way. We don't have to have any further contact if you want or we can part as friends and open up trade relations. I'm not trying to coerce you into joining my Empire. It's big enough frankly." said Harry.

"It is just that we are in the process of completing the exploration and mapping of all the remaining unbound galaxies in the local group of galaxies in the universe that make up our little corner. We discovered you, we're offering to help. That's all. Now, that is enough raising of my voice for one day. So, I will leave you all to it." Harry said.

Harry and his retinue stood up, bowing once to the group of Quorum members and again to Commander Adama and said: "Commander, I look forward to hearing from you." and they all beamed away.

A/N:

\- The 'continuity' for Battlestar Galactica: The Original Series, is that Harry has met them sometime after the events of the second to last episode '23' since in my retconned version episode '24' is let us say unlikely. And lord knows this all happens before any of the ridiculous stuff in Galactica 1980.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Timeframe: 2012-2013, continued...

Aboard the Galactica, the Quorum continued their meeting, arguing about how to respond to Emperor Potter's offer. Setting aside the disbelief of some of their members they were debating the efficacy of returning to the colonies-if the Avalonian's could do what they said they could do.

Commander Adama was advocating that position. He never dreamed that they could counter-attack the Cylon's and take back their worlds and beyond that, his imagination didn't even contemplate that they could clean the world's of the radiation and restore their ecosystem. If they could do all that, and surely there would be pockets of colonial survivors, if they'd lasted this long, they deserve the chance.

As he readied to make another impassioned plea about that, the klaxons went off again...

"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill." came over the 1MC.

"Gentlemen, please stay here under guard for your safety. Officers, with me to the Bridge." ordered Commander Adama.

As they arrived on the bridge, the Commander ordered "sitrep! what's going on?"

"Sir," the OOD said, "Long range dradis has picked up three sets of three Cylon base ships converging on our position from equidistant vectors forty-five degrees apart. They clearly mean to wedge us in."

"Indeed Lieutenant. Helm, maneuver us below the civilian fleet placing them in the middle between us and the Avalonian's and keep our entire fleet within their shield cocoon. Since they mean to protect us lets keep our charges directly between us." ordered Commander Adama.

"Captain Apollo, as CAG, I want you and every Viper in the air immediately. Do not leave the shield cocoon to engage either. Let them come to us. Let's see what these people can do." he continued.

"Relay those orders to all fleet captains. Go!" ordered Commander Adama.

A cacophony of salutes and 'Yes, sir's' echoed throughout the bridge as everyone scattered to perform their duty.

Silently Adama prayed to the Lords of Kobol and any other God that might be listening that he didn't destroy them all when he agreed to stop and hold behind the safety of the Avalonian's shields. He still doubted their shield could do that much. They had experimented with energy shields too but it didn't amount to much. Frankly, he was counting on those big capital ships making a bigger target and having big guns.

...

Aboard the Leviathan...

"Ops Boss, order a unit of Destiny's to advance on all three of the sets of incoming Cylon base ships, and the two Liberator's and their three remaining Destiny to take up screening positions between them and the Colonial fleet." ordered Harry.

"Yes, sir." answered Ops.

"Sir, scanners detect one human life sign aboard one of the lead base ships." said Ops.

"Interesting. Beam the human to the medical bay in stasis and under quarantine until we can have the time to check on him. Doc, you can check to see if he needs medical attention but, I suspect that won't be the case." said Harry.

...

Back aboard Galactica...

"Sir, the Cylon's will be in weapons range of our new friends Battle-cruisers in ten microns. All nine base ships are launching raiders."

10 microns later...

"Whoa! Holy mother Kobol, did you see that?!"

"Easy ensign, calm your theatrics, just report what you see." said Colonel Tigh.

"Sorry sir, the base ships all opened fire on one of the friendly battle-cruisers with their main pulsar cannons. The blasts just stopped in mid-strike hitting an invisible force field of some kind. The friendly's haven't retaliated yet." said tactical.

"The Cylon's have just opened fire with their forward nuclear missile batteries." seconds later... "Sir, the missiles met the same force field and exploded. No damage to the friendly's. God's this is unbelievable." said tactical.

"Ensign?" prodded Colonel Tigh.

"Sir, the raiders are attempting strafing runs against the battle-cruisers, which is also stopped by their force fields. Several raiders that got too close just exploded, sir."

"Sir, comms coming in from the Leviathan sir, they want to know if that is all these Cylon's have." said communications.

"Reply back-yes, except just more of the same at close quarters." said Commander Adama.

A few seconds later, nine bright blue and yellow striped bolts of continuous plasma fired from the battle-cruisers to each of the base ships, making them explode into infernos of debris.

The raiders with no where else to go attempted to run the screen to get at Galactica but never got within half a light year of the shield cocoon as the plasma cannons from all fourteen ships blasted them out of the sky with unequaled speed and precision.

"Wow!" said Colonel Tigh.

"Why Colonel I do believe you just interjected an exclamation. That is so unlike you." replied Commander Adama.

"You should have heard me when that Leviathan appeared out of nowhere." replied Colonel Tigh.

"Oh, Ensign, I believe they call those shields, not force fields." said Adama.

...

Later, that evening Commander Adama played host once again to Emperor Potter and the Quorum of Twelve.

The men in robes seemed quiet and subdued as Commander Adama took the floor.

"Emperor Potter, I have been elected to speak for the Quorum. Please accept my sincere apologies for our rude behavior this morning. After witnessing your military power today against the Cylon's I believe our most ardent members have come to accept the truth before their very own eyes, even if some do not yet understand it."

"Furthermore, it is with humble gratitude that we accept your offer of aid. We would like your help in vanquishing the Cylon's for good, then reclaiming and restoring the health of our home worlds. We hope actually, to find that there might be pockets of survivors that we might return home to liberate and restore to health as well."

"And finally, if you are still willing we would like very much to part as friends and to begin trade relations with you." said Commander Adama.

Then Harry took the floor and said.

"You're apology is accepted. Thank you. We will be happy to do all of these things. Let us begin by having my crews work with your crews to top off all your supplies, assist with repairs, and provide any medical assistance you might need, while I send my fleet out to dispatch the Cylon's, then we can be on our way back to your home worlds." replied Harry.

There was soft, respectful applause as Harry returned the floor to Commander Adama who dismissed the meeting, leaving Harry and his officers behind with Adama and his officers to exchange liaison officers and to coordinate next steps.

"Oh, by the way I think I found something of yours." said Harry, as he waved his hand to his side and appearing next to him was none other than Baltar.

"Baltar!" the Colonial officers exclaimed.

"Captain Apollo, take a security detail and secure this venomous piece of trash in the brig and sit on him to make sure he doesn't get away this time-and tell him nothing of our new friends. We'll deal with him later." said Commander Adama.

"Thank you for finding our lost trash Emperor, we'll make sure to dispose of it properly this time." said Commander Adama.

Harry laughed and said, "Well he's all yours."

...

The colonial fleet watched as the Leviathan dispatched six more Liberator dreadnoughts, that subsequently each dispatched six Destiny, for a fully deployed fleet of eight Liberator dreadnoughts and forty-eight Destiny battle-cruisers that once formed up, leapt as one into hyper-space.

"Frak me, that is impressive." said Commander Adama.

"Thank you Commander, I will pass that along." said Knight-Commander Vane, as she entered the bridge, escorted by Lieutenant Starbuck. Who quickly volunteered when he saw the deliciously hot Imperial Knight from the Leviathan get off the drop ship she used as a shuttle.

"Commander, this is Knight-Commander Romilda Vane of the Leviathan, assigned as your personal liaison to Emperor Potter. Commander Vane, this is Commander William Adama, CO of the Colonial Fleet." said Starbuck.

They exchanged greetings and when there was a clear dismissal implied, Lieutenant Starbuck graciously offered to continue to show Commander Vane around the Fleet if the Commander was too busy.

"Thank you ...Lieutenant, but that is Knight-commander if you please. And, I'll keep that in mind." she answered with a wink.

Ahem. "Yes, thank you Lieutenant, that will be all for now." said Commander Adama.

...

By the next morning, the Fleet was abuzz with representatives from the Leviathan on almost each of the two hundred twenty ships in the fleet, coordinating supply drops and repair actions-all facilitated by strange beams of light that kept materializing and de-materializing matter all over the place to get things moved quickly, and AI repair drones which made the colonials very nervous, skittered about inside and out making repairs to everything, the hull, missing screws, filling deep scratch marks, whatever. They seemed like they were aiming to make the entire fleet as good as new and they were almost done already.

All the civilians had new clothing replicated for them, some of the children even had new toys made for them once some of the older ones explained to the Leviathan liaison officers what they liked. The Colonials couldn't believe the type of technology and the amazing science that must be behind it all that these Alterans as they were being told now to call them were capable of (not Avalonian's if you please).

Emperor Potter and his Ops Officer was meeting with  
Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh for a small lunch and tour of the Leviathan and the pair of Colonials could hardly keep the drool in their mouths, and that was saying something for the always stoic Colonel Tigh.

They discussed the concern that made it's way up the scuttle-butt chain of the Alterans use of robots like Cylon's. Harry explained to them the differences and even a small tale of how they had been perfected and misused over the years. Even their own problems with them millions of years ago and briefly the Asgard's war with them. He understood their concerns but promised them, they had their human form replicator's under control. Then he took them to a nanite lab, where he showed them in slow motion how one of them is put together by the hundred trillion or so of microscopic nanites.

"So, do you all have the concept of nanotechnology or nanorobotics in your science?" asked Harry.

"No, not as you do. We do have nanotechnology but it is limited in use to medical science right now." answered Commander Adama.

"Good. That's how we started off with it too, long ago. I suspect you are on the right path." said Harry.

He kept the rest of the tour light. They were already suitably awed by their capabilities, he didn't need to rub it in their faces. Nor did he just want to start handing out even some of the advanced concepts or principles of all their technology. They still had some growing to do themselves. The decision to return to their home worlds was probably the best for their development all around. He would take their civilization under their wing and try to help them as much as they let him, but only insomuch as they were truly ready. But, they would need help with infrastructure and resources to rebuild quickly and they could spare some of that technology to help them along.

The final leg of the tour was the bridge and Harry's personal command deck on the bridge, with his adjacent ready room.

Both Colonials let out a large whistle in appreciation.

"By the Gods, there is no doubt you people are millions of years ahead of us as you've said. I am certainly glad you came along when you did." said Commander Adama.

"You're welcome Commander. I'm glad we got here in time. Let's retire to my ready room and get the status of the Fleet operation against the Cylon's." said Harry.

"Ops Boss, how goes the hunt for Cylon's?" asked Harry.

"Sir, we have caught up to and destroyed half of them. They finally realized they were in big trouble and tried to both move their colony base and retreat most of their ships to it. Unfortunately for them, we were right on top of them when they moved it and destroyed their colony." answered Ops.

"The Cyrannus system has been purged of all space-born Cylon's as well. We have not yet searched the surface. We are focusing on catching up to the other fleeing base stars, which will be done in a few hours. They are quite slow." said Ops.

"Good. Well then, why don't we let the Fleet continue that Op. while we go ahead and move the Galactica and her flotilla back to Cyrannus and then begin to work on the surface and the environment. Ops send those orders out, and I will coordinate with the Commander here for moving the flotilla." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." said Ops, as he left to update the orders to the Fleet.

"How will you get us all to Cyrannus so quickly? I mean, it seems clear that your ship can do that, but we can't move that fast." asked Colonel Tigh.

"Ah, yes. Well, you all are going to get let into one of the best kept secrets of this ship. I explained to you just a little bit about the hyper-space travel you saw our fleet do. We also have another drive that we usually only use when traveling inter-galactically because it takes a lot of power. The secret is that I can use the wormhole drive of my ship to open a stable wormhole through subspace from here directly to, well anywhere and hold it open for other ships to pass through." said Harry.

"So, roughly my plan is to open up such a wormhole to say one light year away from whatever planet in Cyrannus you want to first arrive at, then you would take your fleet into the wormhole and arrive from your perspective, instantly at that destination. Then I will follow you in the Leviathan and close the wormhole behind me after I arrive."

"Is there anything you people can't do?" asked Colonel Tigh.

"I'm sure there is, but if so please don't tell me because I have this unsettling drive to then go figure out how to do it." answered Harry, truthfully.

"I bet." replied Colonel Tigh.

"Well, this whole day has been very enlightening and I have no doubt you can do all that stuff you just said. But, I'm an old Viper pilot, not a scientist so... I'm just going to trust you to get us home safely. I think we should thank you for your hospitality and return to the Galactica to make ready for all this. I guess we'll coordinate everything through your Knight-Commander Vane still?" said Commander Adama.

"Yes, that will be fine. We'll wait to hear from her, to make ready next steps and set schedules." said Harry.

...

By evening they had decided on a plan. The fleet would arrive at two hundred thousand kilometers from Canceron. The Quorum decided that since their population was now so small that they would ask the Alterans to make cleaning up and restoring Canceron a priority and that the entire fifty-thousand population would settle there, regardless of their traditional colonial heritage. They would need each other to work together to survive and re-build.

The reason they chose Canceron instead of their old Capital planet Caprica is that it was hit the hardest and because out of all the other major planets of the colonies, it appeared to suffer less destruction of its infrastructure according to Alteran scans. And it is actually best overall for a new colony starting over, with its two great landmasses with fertile plains, good harbors, tall mountain ranges, and vast mineral deposits of coal, iron, and silver. After thirty years the radiation half-life will have already dissipated far from dangerous levels.

They would then ask the Alterans to clean and restore their other planets and that they would simply start new settlements on them to re-colonize when the time was right. Meanwhile, they would also ask the Alterans help in finding all survivors if there are any on any of those planets and help them move to Canceron and rejoin the rest of their new primary colony. If anyone doesn't want to move, they wouldn't be forced to. But, there would be no guarantee of support from Canceron for a long time either.

...

The following morning Ops on the Leviathan reported to Harry that the Fleet confirmed the destruction of all known base ships and Cylon outposts and that they were now in station keeping orbit of Canceron, ready to begin surface operations to finish off any lingering Cylon presence, which there did not appear to be much of. It looked like they had abandoned any significant presence on the colonies long ago.

Next, Ops confirmed coordination with Galactica that they successfully finished finalizing fleet maneuvering plans with all ships in their fleet in regard to wormhole travel following distribution of the protocols sent by the Leviathan. They are ready to begin at 1000 hours as planned.

"Ops, have the Fleet dispatch a Destiny class to each of the other eleven colonies to begin surface operations there and to make sure we don't have any more surprises while we're focusing on Canceron. The Liberators and the remaining Destiny escorts begin surface operations on Canceron immediately. We will be there soon." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." answered Ops.

...

At 1000 Harry comm'd Galactica to let them know they were ready to begin maneuvers. Once Galactica's fleet is in position, the Leviathan will open the wormhole. Galactica will take point as per her request, the rest of her fleet will follow, and they will bring up the rear.

Aboard Galactica...

"Nice. Look at that. Did you ever imagine you would see the day where a single ship could create their own controlled singularities that ships could travel through?" mused Commander Adama.

"No sir. I'm still having a difficult time believing half the things we've seen in the past few days." answered Colonel Tigh.

"Well, let's get on with it. Signal the fleet that we will proceed as planned. Helm, take us into that wormhole, maneuvering thrusters only." ordered Commander Adama.

"Yes, sir." replied the Helm officer.

...

Two hundred and twenty-one ships later, the Leviathan emerged from the wormhole to see the Galactica fleet formed up as planned, ready to proceed to Canceron.

"Ops, signal Galactica that we ready to proceed to Canceron orbit. Take us into orbit." ordered Harry.

"Yes, sir." replied Ops and the Helm.

...

This next part was interesting and would take a while. For all the apprehension and excitement leading up to it, returning to Canceron orbit was just the next step. The entire fleet would remain in orbit for a while longer while the Leviathan deployed it's exogenesis machines to purify the environment.

Everyone in the fleet watched as all four sets of the Leviathan's bottom hangers re-opened and what emerged from it was sixty-four flat saucer-shaped obviously unmanned objects, each about one kilometer in diameter that were clearly capable of space flight and according to the Alterans, atmospheric flight, but one couldn't see how. Probably that anti-gravity nonsense they mentioned. The people in Galactica's fleet were just beginning to think that everything these people do is like magic.

The sixty-four sections of the exogenesis machine maneuvered at until in they were in orbit of the planet just within its thermosphere, and then began distributing itself into sixty-four equidistant points surrounding the planet.

Commander Adama turned to Knight-Commander Vane and asked: "We're sure that what they are doing isn't going to harm any survivors that might be down there right?"

"Yes, sir. If we were performing a complete zero-case terraform operation, yes we would worry about life on the planet. But, they are only going to use several discrete modes of the device that will purify the air, purify the waters, and either neutralize or actually collect any harmful radioactive particles or waste that is leftover, depending on the type of particle of course." answered Knight-Commander Vane.

"Good, good. Emperor Potter has explained all this, but it makes me nervous." said Commander Adama.

"Understandable, sir." replied Knight-Commander Vane.

...

Then they all saw a series of one hundred and four large satellites launch from the Leviathan and maneuver themselves into high orbit of Canceron at fifty thousand kilometers, above the geosynchronous orbital zone of the planet.

"What are they doing now?" asked Colonel Tigh.

"They are launching one of our self-healing defense and communication satellite grids." answered Knight-Commander Vane.

"This might sound like a stupid question, but beside the obvious what does it do, or I guess I should really ask what can it defend against and what other capabilities does it have?" asked Colonel Tigh.

She explained the concept of the sixty-four outer ring of satellites, the inner ring of thirty-two spares, and the eight lower ring of molecular constructor satellites that self-repair the entire grid.

"When the shield grid is activated the entire planet will be enveloped in a shield cocoon very much like the one we deployed around the Leviathan and your fleet a few days ago. Each satellite possesses one of the same heavy plasma cannons you saw the Destiny class battle-cruisers use against the Cylon base ships, but with not as much power behind it as the ship-borne weapon. They also serve as a deep-space surveillance and early warning system, and can serve as military and government grade satellite communications. Oh, they also can cloak themselves so they are hidden when not in use." answered Knight-Commander Vane.

"Merlin!" exclaimed Commander Adama.

"Who's that?" asked Colonel Tigh.

"I don't know. Something I heard some of the Alterans say when we were visiting the Leviathan the other day. I think it means the same as when we say, 'Gods' to exclaim something."

Knight-Commander Vane just burst out laughing but then quickly controlled herself.

...

The exogenesis saucers seemed to be in position because they all began to descend slowly into the atmosphere, each emitting bright flashes of light across a wide range spectrum of color of lights, just repeating in a cycle; with the rays from each craft overlapping the others, making for a very interesting light show.

It was fun to watch in the beginning, but then it would give you a headache. So, everyone went back to their duties. In particular the officers wanted to know how the surface operation was going.

Knight-Commander Vane communicated with Ops on the Leviathan and reported:

"Commander, they are suspending surface operations because they have found zero Cylon presence remaining there." she said.

"That's good news. Thank you." replied Commander Adama.

"Yes, sir." she replied.

"Do you know if they have completed full life-sign scans yet to determine if there are any other survivors?" asked Commander Adama.

She comm'd Leviathan again.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry to report that they have found no other human life signs on the planet. They've told me that evidence left behind from the Cylon presence that used to be here is that they had a large surface operation of their own, apparently... Uhm, it appears as though they were rounding up any survivors sir." answered Knight-Commander Vane.

"I see." said Commander Adama, quietly; sharing a solemn look with Colonel Tigh and other close members of his bridge crew. "Thank you." he concluded.

...

This exogenesis operation went on for several days until the Leviathan reported that the operation was complete and a success. The Emperor recommended that they land their fleet at their convenience and they will meet them on the surface to finalize the next steps of the re-building process.

They decided to land on the outskirts of the city of Mangala, a former trading port which was the planet's third largest city, known for its fine art and museums; and for whatever reason most of its infrastructure and buildings were largely untouched in the bombings. The city residential district would be easily large enough to accommodate their fifty thousand. So, they would begin re-settling and re-building from there. There was also some former light industry so if much of that remains intact too as it appeared, they might be able to get some organic re-building processes back up and running for their own sustainability sooner rather than later.

As for the Galactica, they decided it would remain in orbit. They would just run shuttles to and from the surface and maintain a skeleton crew. To maintain their own military presence there as well as serve as the colony's initial orbital relay and anchorage point until they can begin to rebuild any shipyards of their own.

Later in the day, as all two hundred nineteen ships minus the Galactica landed in the newly designated space-port just outside the city. Having offloaded as many terrestrial transport vehicles that they still had, they began making their way to the city center.

Meeting them there was a large contingent from the Leviathan and almost everyone from the Galactica that could be spared.

Commander Adama broke down and wept for their return home and for the loss of twenty-eight billion other lives throughout the colonies. The Emperor had privately confirmed for him their findings that they detected no other human life-signs in the colonies. Perhaps their would have been soon after the initial attacks, but the Cylon's since then had been very thorough.

Captain Apollo and the rest of their family spent some time with the Commander just trying to console each other. It was a bittersweet return that was certain. But they were happy to have saved the lives of their rag-tag fugitive fleet. They were no longer fugitives. Thanks to the Alterans, they were home!

The bulk of the population was giving themselves a tour; not the least of which were the eleven thousand of the fleet's survivor's that were originally from Canceron. Even though they hadn't seen it in thirty years, they knew their way around and the portion that were from Mangala which was not many actually, were going about the business of re-claiming their homes. For that very small portion they might even scrape together a tiny resemblance of their previous lives. Or that is they might find some old belongings long ago abandoned to be of some use still. Eh, they would take any minor miracle the Gods afforded them.

When everyone in the leadership had composed themselves, Harry and his entourage met with them and they were led to the building complex that the government and the military were going to claim as their headquarters, they went in and sat down, at the moment with no power or lights. Fortunately it was still daylight. And that was the first order of business. Power, logistics, infrastructure and just getting a basic colonial life started again.

Fortunately, Harry's Fleet engineers along with their HFR support were way ahead of all of them and had already located and started banging on the right things to make them start working again. They were just waiting on approval to begin restarting power plants, testing and repairing power distribution systems, and the same for water, sewer, and some other basic services.

"Commander, Sire Uri, as I understand it you two are going to co-govern this colony as it gets started again. So, I'm coming to you with this. I have thousands of engineers and work crews already present in many of the infrastructure facilities, starting with power, water, and sewer; and they are telling me they are ready to begin turning plants back on and restoring services. They are just waiting for your permission to start." said Harry.

"Thank you Emperor Potter, I can't tell you how much we thank you. Yes, please tell your wonderful engineers we would be grateful to them to get those service restarted." answered an awe-struck, subdued, and genuinely grateful Sire Uri.

"You're welcome gentlemen. I'm glad this is all going to work out for you. I am going to get ready to leave personally, with the Leviathan. But, I am leaving your planet protected by one of our self-healing satellite defense grids. I am also leaving one Destiny class battle-cruiser in orbit and patrol of your other eleven former colony worlds while they supervise the movement and application of the exogenesis machines to clean those worlds as well. When the whole process is done I'll return to collect the exogenesis." said Harry.

"Also, in the meantime I am leaving two Liberator class Carrier-Battleships with their twelve Destiny class escorts here for your defense and to assist you with rebuilding and other logistical support you may need. Their contingent of engineers and other support staff should be more than enough to continue to assist you with your re-building work." said Harry.

"When we're all done with all twelve planets and you feel secure and if you wish us to leave and take all our military presence with us, we will with no concerns. As I said, we are not here to dominate you. But, I don't want to leave the job half-done either. In the meantime, if you wish, please ask the Captains of any of these ships to allow you to use their holodeck to learn more about our Empire and culture if you wish. And when you are ready we will discuss how we might engage in some form of real trade someday." said Harry.

"Oh, and there is something of a gift I want to give you on top of everything else, because I think this will help you bounce back. You probably wouldn't have asked assuming that it's impossible. But, as we speak the Leviathan is towing your Scorpion Fleet Shipyards, as damaged as they are, from the orbit of Scorpia to Canceron. When it gets here, the Leviathan will use its array of one hundred twenty heavy molecular construction beams to repair and rebuild your shipyards to their original specification using raw materials from the debris field of its destruction itself as materials, including the still docked wrecks of several hulks of Battlestar's, Cruisers, and Transports. I suspect you will need to go up there and do plenty of finishing work to them, but we will get the bulk of the heavy construction of the hulls fixed up and done." said Harry.

"Thank you Emperor Potter. I simply don't know what to say. You have saved us and have done everything you could to give us a leg up on re-building. We also thank you for your patience to allow us to get re-settled and think our lives through before we make any more big decisions about the future. And your protection between now and then is invaluable to us as well. So, just thank you sir, from the bottom of my heart on behalf of our people." said Commander Adama, shaking Harry's hand.

"You're welcome Commander. Good luck." concluded Harry.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Timeframe: 2012-2013, concluded.

Harry returned to Avalon and updated his close associates, including the Furling Eldest about his finding yet another galaxy with disparate groups of humans in it. And specifically the situation with the Kobolian Colonials, and how several of their languages have common roots with several Earth root languages, especially Latin, which also traces back to an earlier root form of Alteran.

The Eldest suggested that he look closer at the history of his own faction of his species, and specifically to see if his people by any chance split into any more factions while on the way to or immediately after initially arriving in Avalon, or perhaps some left to go elsewhere besides Pegasus during their exodus. He noted that it is likely that the original Alteran city ship that fled Celestis probably passed through some of the other unbound galaxies in the local group before making it to Avalon.

That was all very interesting of course, but Harry had a promise to keep to Hermione and the kids. Jimmy really, really wanted to see the magical zoo on Ramius that he'd heard everyone talking about and advertised on the GCN (Galactic Cartoon Network). They were leaving for their planned vacation the next morning.

After arriving home that evening, Harry was jumped on by little Jimmy (9) on one side and little Becca (7) on the other. He had to channel a little zpe into his arms and upper body to hold both of them up, while the little munchkins Charlie (5) and Lily (5), each clung to one of his legs; to a cacophony of: "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, you're home! Yeah!" ... followed by a smiling Mione.

"They missed you hon." said Hermione.

"I missed them too." he replied, as little Becca rubbed her nose on her Daddy's and said, "that's an Eskimo kiss Daddy." He slowly dragged them with the little ones clung to his legs over to Hermione where he carefully bent down to give her a kiss and said, "I missed you too luv." said Harry.

Then Becca climbed off her Dad and over to her Mum, and Jimmy shifted around to get both his arms around his Dad's neck. Harry maneuvered them all to sit down on the sofa, and the two little ones leapt up to hop on his belly and side opposite of their big brother. Hermione sat down next to them with Becca climbing down to snuggle between them.

"Tell us a story Daddy, tell us how your trip went please?" asked Jimmy.

So, Harry gave them a G rated version of the story about how he helped a new group of human friends in another galaxy to get their new colony world started up.

"So, is everyone ready for our big vacation trip tomorrow?"

"Yeassss!" Harry heard echoed in a cacophony of the little voices he loved to hear so much.

For the next two weeks, the Royal Family vacationed across the Empire. It wasn't the first time the kids got out of the galaxy. But probably the first time they would all remember due to their ages. There was a big to-do where the children were presented to the gathered Senate of Chandilar. Harry agreed to this not because he favored the spectacle of their children in the spotlight, but because they each wanted to see and meet as many aliens as they could. They were fascinated, and that would be a good experience for them.

The highlight of the trip was Ramius of course where they got to see real live dragons, griffin, hippogriffs, sphinx, unicorns, owls, fairies, pixies, imps, gnomes, and a phoenix, et al. as well as some very interesting plant life from the new Herbology exhibit, including mandrakes, devil snares, bouncing bulbs, dirigible plums, honking daffodils, and a baby whomping willow.

Harry asked Luna: "When did you all get a phoenix here?"

"We didn't go get it, she just appeared here on her own about a week ago. Beautiful, isn't she?" answered Luna.

"Since she arrived we just set up this area for her with her own perch and provide food and water, and she has stayed." Luna said.

"She is beautiful. Very interesting too. Great job you've done with this place Luna. This has probably been one of our best ideas yet since coming out into the galaxy." said Harry.

...

EarthGov and EarthForce were well into their Pegasus exploration mission led by full Colonel Samantha Carter, and have already met many of the non-aligned human settlements there. They have established diplomatic and trade relations with a dozen worlds of varying human settlements that originally declined to join up with New Lantea. They made friends with the Satedan refugees that still lived on Belkan and Belsa, courtesy of Ronan of New Lantea's suggestion and his introductions, and agreed to start a joint colony with them to re-build Sateda. Thus, EarthGov had begun to make its own mark in Pegasus and would enjoy a period of growth there, eventually finding their own source of raw neutronium on one of their new colony worlds. They knew about some of its properties and potential uses courtesy of the Asgard technology they received and the subsequent year of mentoring by Hermiod, but since the Asgard did not give them any weapons systems technology or designs, they still had plenty of work on their own to do to make the best use of it. The one thing they did know is how to use it as an alloy to strengthen their hulls, so that was the first item on that agenda.

...

After returning home from vacation and getting back to work Harry instructed Fleet HQ and the Exploration and Colonization departments to establish a colony and a small military outpost in the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy. Once they are established, they are to open up diplomatic and trade relations with the Kobolian Colonies.

In the meantime, he also directed the Exploration department to continue exploration of the remaining list of unexplored unbound galaxies, one at a time as previously directed.

While he would spend some time looking over Alteran government records for colonization or exploration missions from the time of their original arrival in Avalon until their exodus. He thought he had a handle on that already, but he was just being thorough. The new area he was really focusing on now was the same records for the Lanteans, during their time in Pegasus from seven point five million years ago until their ascension and abandonment of Atlantis just over ten thousand years ago.

It hit him that with all the mysteries they were trying to solve and all the other new information, that as far as Pegasus was concerned all they ever thought about was the very recent Wraith era, which included the Asuran era. He never even looked into the millions of years before that. Janus didn't have anything interesting in his memory of it.

As Harry dug into the Pegasus era records of Atlantis he did find some interesting missions. Beginning as recently as just over one point five million years ago the Lanteans sent an expedition to start a colony in the Triangulum galaxy which they noted in previous studies was already teeming with a variety of non-human sentient life.

This was followed by another record of the expeditions return and abandonment of their colony in Triangulum about ninety nine thousand years ago. This file was coded ultra top secret, for High Councilor Eyes Only, and marked HCDR (high councilor declassification required). Harry, being the only one with that clearance entered his codes and opened the file. He spent a while reading it and then re-reading it in silence, then just exclaimed to the empty room, "Holy Shit!"

...

Harry began thinking that he would need to send some kind of expedition to Triangulum to check on the status of things. Or, then he thought, should he just leave well enough alone? He had an uneasy feeling that whatever he decided and whatever actions he took or didn't take would be pivotal.

He spent the next couple months just pondering this. He wavered back and forth about telling Hermione about it. Technically, following the old laws, he shouldn't even tell her. Then again, even under the old laws it was in his power to declassify the information. But, he wasn't about to do that. In the end, Hermione knew something had been troubling him over the past couple months and she asked him to open up about it. He decided to interpret the laws under his new regime, with Hermione being Empress, she should have the equal security access that he has. In fact she already does everywhere else, except the original Atlantis computer core. So, he resolved to fix that soon as well.

In the meantime, he told Hermione what he discovered in the files on the Triangulum galaxy. She was as troubled by it as he was and they had a number of philosophical discussions on it. In the end they felt they owed at least something to the people of that galaxy to look in on things and take it from there. With that being the case and the scale of what this expedition would need to be, Hermione decided she'd done all she needed to get the Academy scaled up to larger enrollment and resigned early from that post so that she could accompany Harry on this mission. She needed to be there for Harry all the way on this. Her parents would take a leading role in caring for the kids for awhile, but Harry needed her for this. Beside's she figured once they get settled there they can start to come back and forth regularly through the stargate.

...

First, they held a status meeting with the Head of Exploration to get status on their work so far. They had just reported they finished initial expeditions to all the smaller galaxies, and that Triangulum was the last and next to go. So, Harry wanted to pre-empt that and be involved from step one.

Of the other galaxies, only three seemed to be of unique interest. He ordered that they go ahead and establish a founding colony in each of those as they had done with the others and let the colony take it from there in each of those galaxies. Galaxy IC 1613, they found that it had a similar evolutionary history as Pegasus, and like Pegasus had a high number of planets suitable for life and many with rich resources used often by the Alterans. So, Harry ordered a colony and a small military outpost and shipyard to be started there, followed by inviting the merchant class in, with an objective of exploiting the galaxies rich resource planets. The Cetus Dwarf galaxy had a large population of Red Giant stars really only suitable to the Kryptonians. So, he ordered a colony and military outpost started there and sent a communiqué to New Krypton about their findings and that the galaxy is their's to colonize and exploit as they see fit.

Harry was excited to learn that the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy aka SagDIG, the most remote object from the Local Group barycenter, being only slightly outside the zero-velocity surface of the Local Group. Had a rich intermediate-age population of stars-and most interestingly, twenty-seven candidate carbon stars had been identified. That being the case, he ordered that galaxy quarantined and locked down to his access only the same as he did the Draco Dwarf.

...

For the Triangulum galaxy, Harry informed the department that he would personally lead that exploration and any manned expeditions that goes there. First, they were to send one Voyager on a course to intentionally stop short of the gravity well of the galaxy by one thousand light-years at a specific set of coordinates, make a dead stop in the void between the galaxies, and observe the galaxy with active scans.

...

Two days later the suddenly very excited and busy exploration department with thrice as many staff than usual suddenly on hand and all abuzz in the observation lounge and meeting rooms, were set to report to Harry their initial findings. It was a surprise to them, it was not a surprise to Harry. But, he privately wished somehow in the last tens of thousands of years it had just gone away.

What the Voyager found was five small artificial moons gravity bound and orbiting the barycenter of the galaxy, rotating around it in equidistant positions, which seem to be powering a huge hyper-space nullification field around the entire galaxy.

"Why would anyone build something like that?" asked one of the head engineers.

The department head answered: "Probably to keep people like us out."

"Or, possibly to keep something else in." countered Harry, although he wished he hadn't said anything.

That caused many a frown and disturbing thoughts throughout the room.

Harry said: "Alright, everyone listen up! Everything you see and hear in this room is classified top secret, compartmented access only. All of you, and all the other curious people who showed up today to witness this spectacle just got transferred to the Science division on the Leviathan."

"We are going to investigate all of this thoroughly and carefully. The Leviathan leaves dock from Bastion anchorage in one month. Get yourselves ready for a very long deployment, and report for duty aboard Leviathan within three weeks to continue to make preparations for this expedition, at which time we will begin classified debriefings." Harry announced.

...

Later, Harry and Hermione were in Harry's ready room aboard Leviathan on a holo-call to Fleet HQ and the Capitol, explaining a high-level pass of the mission they were about to embark on and instructing the Admiral to prepare a full escort fleet for the Leviathan of sixteen Liberator Carrier-Battleship's to be ready to deploy in one month.

Then he got on another holo-call to the Citadel at Natania and told the Knight-Admiral that he was sorry to have to do it to him, but he will need three full Imperial Knight-Carriers to deploy with the Leviathan for their mission to Triangulum. He knew that left them with only three others for the rest of the Empire right now. Which basically meant, longer deployments and little relief.

"Harry, are you expecting to get into a fight as soon as we get there?" asked Hermione.

"No. If I was, I would be amassing an armada of at least five thousand Capital ships to take point before we ever stepped foot there." answered Harry.

"I just want to be as prepared as possible for quick reactions if we need it. A lot could have changed since that last report. And we know that the situation was left contained. But, who knows what has happened since then. However, this galaxy was teeming with life before our ancestors ever visited there and then they seeded human life on top of it. We know that when they abandoned it, their own forecast would put the galaxy into an enormous scale of development and colonization by the races there in this amount of time and they have remained isolated as far as we know." said Harry.

"But, also for all that we know, all life in the galaxy could've been destroyed in that time as well. We just don't know what we'll find. But, if it's how the ancestors expected we would find it, I want to be prepared to make a small foothold there ourselves. Once we go there, I doubt we will find ourselves easily able to leave and ignore it again. We would be foolish to do so, even if the main problem is still contained. In the long run it may well be up to us to do something about that." said Harry.

"That make's sense. You're worried about this aren't you?" asked Hermione.

"Not in general about exploring the galaxy or even establishing a small colony or foothold there. It's the ancestors mistake that I'm worried about. I'm expecting that since we found the hyper-space nullification field intact, that it's still there. Hopefully still where it is supposed to be, safely out of the way. If not, well, we'll have to take it from there." said Harry.

"And do you know what is powering that thing?" asked Harry.

"No." answered Hermione, truthfully.

"Those are fully perfected, fully functioning, Arcturus reactors. That is all Lantean tech. and I doubt that everyone in that meeting room when we discovered it missed that fact once they realized what they were looking at. And by now many wheels would be spinning in peoples heads. That is why I immediately raised the classification level and re-assigned all who witnessed that report to the Leviathan. That tech. according to public records, was never perfected and the experiment abandoned. In the ultra top secret files opened along with this case, the full truth behind those reactors was also disclosed." said Harry.

"Well, like you said. At least it is still working. We'll just have to be careful not to disturb it and keep that door closed. We are going to do that right?" asked Hermione.

"Yes. Definitely. I've been working on the sub-space worm-hole calculations to get us around it. That thing will prevent all normal hyper-space travel in or out. But, at the time when this was built, even the Lanteans had not proven the efficacy of sub-space worm-hole travel for starships. The one experimental version on Atlantis was never perfected, but as you know I was able to perfect it on Destiny Mk II, then I was able to scale that up to the Liberator and Leviathan." said Harry.

"Inter-galactic stargates would also work. But, this is the trick for all of that, whether worm-hole drive or stargate. I've been looking over the analysis of that nullification field. We can safely penetrate it with sub-space worm-holes, but we must stay fifteen degrees away, either side of any of the five emitters on those artificial moons. Which essentially means, for safe sub-space travel or even communications, we need to stay near the center of any one of five forty-two degree wide rotating regions of space left open, if you will, to sub-space." said Harry.

"And the trick to all of it is that the five emitters are rotating around the galaxy in an orbit. So, any stargates on either side, or any ships on either side wanting to travel or communicate by sub-space through that field need to continuously re-calibrate their tracking of those five emitters and adjust worm-hole tracking and targeting to account for it. The good news is these artificial moons were put expertly into good stable and therefore predictable orbits, and the minor relative movements will be very slow in the first place. But, I don't want to simply rely upon any of that. We put everything at risk when we travel by worm-hole, so in the long-run I will want to establish monitoring stations to continuously transmit calibration signals from external observation posts to main the absolute best in precision." said Harry.

"It sounds like you have it all thought out. People keep wondering why you stay so personally involved in all this work but they forget, and well most don't know of course; that you also are merged with the most advanced theoretical scientific mind of the most recent Lantean generation. I just keep having to tell people that you're still young and want to stay involved in everything. They don't know as I do that you might be the only one who can figure some of this stuff out sometimes." said Hermione, with warmth and pride showing in her eyes.

"Thanks Mione. I'm trying. I've learned a lot of unusual things lately that I never expected as well. Not just about this galaxy, but all of that cosmic stuff from the Furling Eldest as well. I hope we're doing the right things." said Harry.

...

In preparation for the upcoming mission he two new special satellites built that is almost a mini-space station. It would contain an intergalactic stargate and serve as a major communications and personnel relay station and of course had a shield and a cloak. One purpose would be to transmit a continuous locator beacon and timing signal so that all friendly ships knew how to find the same location in the void each time.

He planned to place both into forced geosynchronous orbits at the optimal radial relative to the galactic barycenter that he chose to be their point of ingress through the nullification field into the galaxy. They would use its own engines to maintain position as necessary. It would also be the first satellite he built that actually had three of its own ZPM. If they did end up establishing a permanent colony in this galaxy, they would use these satellites position as a safe anchorage in the void and build around it to establish a more substantial presence there. As Hermione said, under no circumstances does he want to take down the electric dog fence until they know the rabid dog is put down. Why in the hell his ancestors just couldn't do that in the first place he'll never know.

...

Time came to deploy and he was nervously fidgeting with his hands. He had tried to be as prepared for this as he could but he couldn't help feeling like there was more he could do.

"What's the matter honey?" asked Hermione as they just finished saying goodbye to the children, making sure they knew they loved them and even though they were going away on a long trip for awhile that they would be back as fast as they could.

"It's this thing the ancestors left trapped there. I've tried to read up on it and I just don't know how we'll defend against it, if its running amok over there." said Harry.

"Why don't you bring your you-know-what gun just in case?" tried Hermione, helpfully.

"Oh, I have it. I just don't know if it'll do any good in this case. It's okay, it's just that I'm worried about you and all the other people I'm putting in harms way by going there. If it is still where it belongs, we'll have time to study it and work on a good solution. It's just that I'm not used to going into things like this with no backup plan." said Harry.

"Well, I have a good back-up plan for the both of us hon, if it comes to it." said Hermione.

"What's that?" asked Harry.

"Run like hell." replied Hermione.

"And by that I mean, teleport from wherever we are to the nearest ship with an intergalactic stargate and immediately gate to the new relay station you will be dropping in the void, and then hope that the nullification field still holds." said Hermione.

"... and that it wasn't fast enough to stop us or follow us. Yeah, that's one plan. Okay, we'll just pretend that makes me feel better about the whole thing and let's get going." Harry said, as he gave Hermione a kiss and they walked out to their stargate.

...

Harry and Hermione sat in their command chairs on the observation command deck of the Leviathan having already given Admiral Peakes, the order to take the fleet out.

The Leviathan flanked by its escort of sixteen Liberator's leapt into hyper-space heading for the edge of the galaxy where the Leviathan will engage it's worm-hole drive to open a worm-hole for the fleet to the designated coordinates.

Upon opening the worm-hole the ships computer issued the expected warning over the 1MC of the high-energy distortion in hyper-space detected ahead on the other side of the worm-hole. That was just a precautionary note since they would be traveling through sub-space and coming up short of the hyper-space barrier. But, it was just standard protocol for the navigational computer. Other than that the Admiral confirmed that they had an all-clear.

Harry took a deep-breath and said, "Admiral, take the fleet in."

"Yes, sir." replied Admiral Peakes.

...

They arrived safe and sound as expected, in the galactic void facing the Triangulum galaxy. He wasn't expecting any problems with this part really. All his anxiety is coming from what might wait on the other side.

"Admiral, begin phase one."

They launched Harry's special void beacon satellite and activated all its systems and confirmed it's stable orbit at the planned radial.

Then they opened a worm-hole to the targeted destination within the galaxy and sent it's partner, second satellite through; and waited until it reported that it had arrived safely where expected and successfully began maneuvering.

Shortly after that the beacon satellite's AI established the first routine opening of the paired gates to test full-duplex sub-space communications through the gates and the relays. All seemed to check out.

So, they began phase 2, which was to launch a full deep space probe into the worm-hole to do a passive scan of the galaxy, searching for all forms of radio or EM signals, sub-space traffic, hyper-space traffic, anything to give them an indication of life or space travel, and so forth-and transmit that data back to them on the void side for their analysis.

Harry knew that it would take them about a day to get a full scan of every possible frequency on every possible medium and to do an initial analysis of it. But, he wanted to know if they were getting anything at all.

"Admiral, has the probe begun reporting anything back yet?" asked Harry.

"It has. We are receiving a variety of transmissions across a wide-range of medium, including sub-space and hyper-space. None of it is analyzed yet, but we are receiving intercepts across the board." answered Admiral Peakes.

"Thanks." Harry said.

He turned to Hermione and said, "That's really a good sign."

"Yup. So, can you calm down a little now?" Hermione replied.

"Yeah. It's good. It indicates there is life there, and space-faring society of some kind. So, yeah." said Harry.

Hermione knew that Harry knew better than she did that without analyzing any of it yet that those signals could also be very, very old and might not mean anything about the current state of things. But, she wasn't going to bring it up if he didn't.

So, they retired for the day. Deciding to just wait until the next day to get the team's initial analysis.

...

The next morning the probe's analysis confirmed there was a lot of different sentient life in the galaxy. There was a lot of sub-space communications and hyper-space travel. They were too far out from the inhabited portion of the galaxy to get detailed information but initial conclusions supported that the inhabitants seem to only use sub-space for communications and hyper-space for travel. Also, if the number of apparently different languages is any indication there were many thousands of different races and languages probably many more, including something that appeared dominant referred to as Galactic Basic Standard.

With that they concluded that it was likely there was a galactic level government of some kind. So, Harry started to relax thinking that his worst fears would not be realized. They could still all be maniacs, but if they are just ordinary maniacs he felt those he could handle. It's what those people probably don't even know is hidden in their galaxy that everyone needed to worry about.

In any case it seemed like he was right where he hoped they'd be, ready to go to phase three, to actually take their fleet into Triangulum space and make a real expedition of it.

So, without any further ado, he ordered the Admiral to ready the fleet and at his convenience, to open a worm-hole at the designated coordinates and take them in.


	23. Chapter 23

First, try to keep a sense of humor.

Second. Repeat after me. Retcon (retroactive continuity) is the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work.

Third. This story is retconned. That means that things you bring with you to this story from other fictional works as previously established facts, are up for grabs and may be entirely different in my story, for reasons of my own.

Oh, in case anyone doesn't know. ABY means "After the Battle of Yavin; and therefore BBY means? anyone, anyone? Bueller, Bueller?" (If you don't know what the Battle of Yavin is, I give up).

By the way, I have read all the relevant SWEU books and I own them. I do have some idea of what I'm talking about. I also have my own opinions of some of it and it might differ from yours or the authors. I read them when they came out, so it's been a while. And the books are not written with indexes for use as reference materials so don't expect me to look up every jot and tittle to get it 'just right' even when I am trying to use the original fiction. I will use wookiepedia to look up things I need to know (and still might change some things).

Chapter 23 - Expedition to the Triangulum Galaxy

The Avalon Empire Fleet arrived inside the edge of the Unknown Regions of the Triangulum Galaxy near the beginning of twenty-six ABY, during the second year of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion; on a radial fairly close to what was considered Galactic South on the local official star maps, way out of range of any known travel routes rimward and spinward of the galactic core. Their cloaked beacon relay satellite was where it was supposed to be and holding position, maintaining a regular data communications burst to/from the empire and as needed.

Having just arrived on the edge of the galaxy, they had not discovered any of those names or dates yet, nor any of the first signs of inhabited worlds. They were still out 'beyond the outer rim' of this new galaxy. The first order of business therefore was to send out their one cloaked and unmanned Voyager that they brought with them to scout ahead of them and look for an unclaimed star system that would be of at least reasonable use for them to start up a non-disruptive and hopefully secret undetected base of operations.

During the groups initial exploration they came upon an uninhabited planet of modest habitability with three moons that was orbiting a common yellow star. It was also obvious that no one had ever stepped foot on or near the place. So, it would be perfect. Based on their initial probe analysis and more recent active scans from the fleet, it did not appear the civilization that lived in this galaxy had explored this far out to the rim yet. All the better for them at the moment.

Harry decided they would therefore start a colony there along with a military outpost and shipyard. To this end, they first constructed a planetary cloaking array on one of the moons and cloaked it to form a hidden anchorage for the bulk of their fleet. The cloak extended one thousand kilometers Omni-directionally from the moon's surface taking a lot of power, but providing plenty of space to hide a very large anchorage, space station, shipyard, and supply depot facilities.

They named the planet Triangulo since it would be their first and main base of operation in the galaxy, from their home perspective. As it served as the gateway and nearest ingress and egress point for their sub-space worm-hole travel to and from Triangulum. Harry comm'd back to the Capitol and told them to work up one of the standard colony ships to be redirected to Triangulo but to make sure all who volunteered for this colony understood the situation with hyper-space travel and that sub-space travel would be limited for a considerable amount of time. That most who make the trip, might be settling here for life. Then when the mission is ready to go on their end, to place it on hold and contact him for a go/no-go decision. They still had considerable exploration to do before making that final decision.

With initial planning done, Harry placed the Leviathan at the heart of the new hidden anchorage along with seven eighths of the fleet. He would venture forward with one battle-group of three Liberator's and their eighteen docked Destiny's to go out and see if they can make friends somewhere. He hoped the size of his three Liberator's didn't put people off too much but, he wasn't going into it unprotected either. They would remain cloaked as much as possible.

Meanwhile Hermione would take command of the rest of the expedition and follow-up with getting the military outpost set up on the surface of Triangulum as well as the space stations and shipyards of the anchorage; and supervise the launch and analysis of the thousands and thousands of cloaked deep space probes all over the galaxy designed to perform passive scanning of everything and develop detailed stellar maps of the galaxy. Very much similar to how an unmanned Voyager mission might have done it, but this time with a full staff of analysts working on getting the picture just right in real-time.

Naturally, the explorers would remain cloaked at all times until it is wise to reveal themselves. So Harry in command of his battle group pressed on slowly but not too slowly, to find inhabited worlds where they might be able to make contact with the government of this galaxy. He wasn't planning on pussy-footing around. He would contact the authorities, introduce himself with an initial cover story and let them know his intentions to create a small settlement here for the long-term goals of peaceful cultural exchange, diplomacy and trade. He would leave the mapping up to the probe teams.

Less then a week into their travel, Harry's battle group finally came upon the first inhabited star system. They got a complete and verified translation matrix for Galactic Basic Standard from the Leviathan already. So they knew from intercepts that this planet was called Kal'Shebbol, part of the Kathol sector, in what they called the Outer Rim Territories at standard grid coordinates M-21, which was along the so-called Trition Trade Route. They also figured out that Kal'Shebbol happened to be the Capitol of this sector, which was part of something called the New Republic. It all sounded good so far, Harry thought.

As they approached the star system they decided to launch one Destiny battle-cruiser uncloaked ahead of the main battle group. Harry figured it would be better to attract any attention to one relatively small ship and then if there is a military response to their arrival (which he would order if he were them), it might be muted to an appropriate level and he would get a chance to talk to someone before people start shooting.

As predicted, several small ships left the star system on a vector toward their battle group. As they got into range they tracked two one hundred fifty one meter ships that one might classify a corvette, flanking a four hundred fifty meter ship that looked like it might actually have weapons on it that would probably be a cruiser. So, basically just a welcome wagon.

"Attention, unidentified vessel approaching Kathol sector space." came over the 1MC in Galactic Standard Basic (Basic).

"This is Captain Varin of the New Republic Cruiser Bozhnee. In the name of the Republic please come to a full stop and identify yourself and your intentions." said Captain Varin.

Harry ordered all stop and then projected himself via hologram to the Cruiser.

"Greetings, Captain Varin. We come in peace I assure you. I am Captain Harry Potter of the Avalon Empire Cruiser Destiny. We have recently arrived in your galaxy as peaceful explorers on a mission of discovery, diplomacy, and trade."

"Yours is the first inhabited world we discovered on our way coreward from beyond the outer rim. I had hoped to make introductions and to have an opportunity to meet with your government leaders to request an opportunity to explore and trade." said Harry.

"Very well Captain Potter. Please hold while I confer with my command." said Captain Varin.

"Roger, will do." replied Harry.

...

Fifteen minutes later, Captain Varin came back. "Captain Potter. I have been instructed to escort you to our Capitol to meet in a peaceful discussion with our Governor Monjai. We do not get many extra-galactic visitors and she is most curious to meet you."

"Thank you. I will comply." said Harry.

Then he had himself beamed over to the Destiny along with six Imperial Knight body-guards who would accompany him as his away team. He ordered his battle group to just remain in that position cloaked and in communication at all times, ready for anything. Since they hadn't detected their cloaks yet, he thought why push his luck closer to the star system and the planet. He figured let's allow this first contact to be as friendly as possible. It's bad enough he has to tell them some lies up front. That is enough to come back and bite them at some point.

As the Cruiser and his escorts turned to maneuver back on course to the star system he heard, "Captain, follow us and when I give you the order to stop your main engines to go with atmospheric thrusters only, please do so and then I and my escorts will tractor you to the star port. I assume you can follow-us in hyper-space until we reach the planet?" said Captain Varin.

"Yes, we will follow you in hyper-space and allow you to tractor us in at your command. Thank you." replied Harry.

Harry quickly reset his hyper-space navigation computers from auto-configuration mode to beacon target lock. Something they almost never do. But, this will make it easier for the Destiny to follow them precisely on their path and not make it's own hyper-space jump.

...

Harry met with Governor Monjai and she expressed an interest in his proposals, but told him that she couldn't make such decisions herself without the Chief of State, if his people truly were from outside their galaxy.

She explained that they rarely over eons get any visitors from outside the galaxy and that they cannot even travel beyond the rim themselves because of an impenetrable hyper-space disturbance. And also that when they do receive extra-galactic visitors they nearly always turn out to be hostile.

She explained how even now a good portion of the galaxy is being over-run by a hostile race that began a large scale invasion just a year ago up in the Galactic North and was now spreading coreward. Some say the Capitol on Coruscant might even be vulnerable.

"What can you share with me about these invaders? Maybe we could be of some help?" suggested Harry.

She proceeded to tell him what little she knew of the Yuuzhan Vong (YV). She didn't know much, not being that involved with military affairs herself. But she described a fearsome enemy that had a racial hatred of any use of machinery or any artificial constructs and by their own boasting aim to destroy all life in the galaxy that they find unworthy and enslave the rest.

Now that sounded familiar to Harry. He was pretty sure he already knew what side he would be on, if they were to get involved. And he also knew that any galactic war of that scale could unlock access to the ancestor's big mistake that was imprisoned in the galaxy. He needed to learn more about this galaxy, and about both sides of this conflict, quickly.

"I will attempt to put you into contact with Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya's office. I know he is very busy prosecuting the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. But hopefully someone in the Executive office will be able to steer you in the right direction." said Governor Monjai.

"Thank you ma'am. In the meantime, might I be able to get a tour of this wonderful city? I would like to sample the culture and cuisine of this beautiful world." asked Harry.

"Certainly Captain Potter. I will call one of my assistants to arrange a tour for you. We have a small but viable tourist industry here." she answered.

An hour or so later as Harry was feigning great interest in all of the sights and food accompanied by the tour guide the Governor's assistant arranged for him. He asked, "Are there any museums or libraries around where I could see some more if the history of this world?"

"Certainly, we are down the street from the city's main public archive now. Just this way and I'll show you." said the guide.

Harry thanked the guide and told her he would be there a while. That he could find his way back to the Capitol building later, and gave her a large tip in Galactic Standard Credits (hereafter as G€), which she helped him earlier in the day exchange for a pile of pure gold rounds that he carried for just the occasion. He got G€ 10,000, and apparently that is a lot because she was gawking at him for a while after that.

But all of that was to get him to a library and unsupervised. He got some help finding the right sort of computer terminal for what he needed and ...jackpot. While unseen he summoned one of his miniature stealth computer taps and attached it in an innocuous place behind the terminal. Then he had his PNA initiate a full download and encrypted sub-space upload of everything this computer had access to relayed to his flagship, then relayed again back to Leviathan (which would there again be sent in bursts back to Atlantis over time).

Meanwhile he manually flipped through some of the body's of work on galactic history, the current state of political affairs, the Yuuzhan Vong war, and so forth. He knew that he was only going to get access to information that is public knowledge at this point. But that is quite a bit more than he had to start with and included basic political star maps and public information about their technology, and would provide much of the context for everything else he needs and will learn in person along the way. So, he personally absorbed as much as he could at the sitting as well.

The galaxy was quite a bit more inhabited than he imagined. And this war looked really bad. When he glanced at some of the other campaign maps of recent wars dating back to the Sith Dark Lord Palpatine's Empire and The Rebellion of people loyal to the former Republic, he noted the years those campaigns took. In comparison these Yuuzhan Vong were practically sweeping non-stop across this galaxy. He was beginning to think Governor Monjai way understated the scope and danger of the war.

And then he took a step back. He didn't know what a Sith was, but he understood the term Dark Lord well enough. And it looked like the current New Republic government was being run by the leaders of the rebellion that deposed that Dark Lord. So that's good and another point in their favor as to coming in on their side.

Then he got some more detail on what these Yuuzhan Vong were. Masochistic, genocidal, xenophobic, and worshipped a philosophy of pain, unable to be sensed or affected by the force. And all of their technology was genetically engineered and biologically grown. No machine tech. as they would know it.

Then there was that force word again. He needed to find out what the force was and who the Jedi were. It looked like some kind of religion. The only other reference he had to it was the classified records from the abandoned colony, they wrote of the force too in their description of the abomination and said that it was unnatural and should not exist but they otherwise did not get philosophical about it other than calling it a mistake. The fact that there is a group of people going around worshiping it and supposedly using this force troubled him. But as he understood it there should be a light side to the force and a dark side to the force. He would just have to wait and see what the heck is going on. He did not have enough information.

He left the computer tap in place to continue the data stream until they managed to get everything, and then it would non-violently self destruct by atomizing itself. From what he'd seen so far, this download would take a long time. Even as a back-water relatively recent expansion colony, this planet being the Capitol of this sector had access to the Galactic Core public archives as well. So, a rather good score for their first phase of intelligence gathering.

By late afternoon Harry made his way back to the Capitol building to check in with Governor Monjai as expected. And thank goodness, holding to the Potter luck, the Governor never realized he'd basically given his tour guide minder the slip by dismissing her early and spending all afternoon in their library.

"Captain Potter, as expected I was unable to get through to Chief Fey'lya but, his office put me through to Senator Cal Omas who has made it known he was open to talking to anyone with new ideas about how to defend against the Yuuzhan Vong." said Governor Monjai.

"Thank you ma'am. How will we arrange the meeting?" Harry asked.

"He will be taking a diplomatic cruiser from Coruscant to here and would like to meet with you tomorrow morning." said Governor Monjai.

"That's great. Thank you for your help. May I retire to quarters aboard my ship and meet you back here tomorrow morning then?" said Harry.

"That is fine Captain. Eight ante merediem (AM) if you please." she replied.

"Yes ma'am. Thank you." concluded Harry.

Harry made sure he was secure on his Destiny cruiser, then he made a holo-call to Hermione to go over the results so far and told her what he thought about potentially helping these people out with this invasion, and maybe get a little corner of territory there for themselves out of the deal.

"Are you sure that's the right thing to do Harry? It seems rather cynical to just take advantage of their need like that to get so much from them." said Hermione.

"I know it is. But look how vast this one galaxy is settled and populated. Just the number of humans in this galaxy dwarfs the entire population of all beings in our Empire. And you know where they all came from. If we have a responsibility to be anywhere and helping out it would be here. Plus, we need a foothold in order to be able to properly keep a watch and be prepared to intervene with a number of our ancient problems that are lingering here, especially the big one." said Harry.

"I actually fear that this Yuuzhan Vong war could be what sets it loose, even if its unintentional. I'd like to prevent it if possible. That will buy us more time to do research and to understand." said Harry.

"I guess I understand what you're saying. I just have misgivings about it." said Hermione.

"Are you planning on letting them know that we know certain things about their galaxy's ancient history that they might not be aware of?" asked Hermione.

"I don't plan to, no. Maybe in time after we get to know them and see how much they know first, and see how they might react to our knowing. It is always possible that they've dealt with it already as well. We need to see how things go first. They actually have a group of force users that seem to treat it like a religion. I have no idea yet how that could've happened; and most of the light reading I've seen on it so far suggests they are considered good people, keepers of peace and seekers of justice. Then there are ones that go bad from time to time calling themselves Dark Lords. Ring any bells?" said Harry.

"It does. That even sounds like a watered down version of part of the warning in that record from the colony. Light and Dark both opposing each other but seeking balance. Do you think they've established balance with it?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know. But, it's not supposed to exist in the first place. I guess we need to play some of that by ear. But, I'm not going to dismiss my concerns about the Maw and what is hidden there until I know for sure." answered Harry. (Oh, I dropped the dime that time.)

"As a matter of fact, I took a browsing look through what they have in their public archives for ancient history and they all believe life was originally created here by the Architects, which they also call the Celestials. And its not the cosmic ones you might be thinking of. They describe some of the works of their Celestials, and several of those are straight out of the classified report left by our ancestors who abandoned this place ninety nine thousand years ago, remember?"

"Yeah, that makes sense." replied Hermione,

"Well, I'm not sure I'm ready for them to realize that our race were their Celestials. I can think of a variety of directions that could go, many not so good or at least unwise. So, that is one reason I want to get more immersed into their culture and get to know people and their government first. Heck, what if some of the races here swear a blood feud on our race blaming everything that ever went wrong on this galaxy on us? And they might be right!" said Harry.

"Anyway. I can't just standby and watch these Yuuzhan Vong exterminate all human life in this galaxy. I will probably have to reveal more to them about our power in general in order to get them to take our offer of help seriously." said Harry.

"Oh, by the way. Are you enjoying that data feed from one of their sector capitol's public archives?" asked Harry.

"Yes, it's given a lot of people more to do. We have groups off doing deep dives into studying different facets of their multitude of diverse civilizations history and current events, diplomacy, science, technology. It's a wealth of information." replied Hermione.

"Good." said Harry.

"Well, I'm going to turn in for tonight. I love you hon. I'll talk to you tomorrow." said Harry.

...

The next day, Harry met with Senator Cal Omas, Governor Monjai since she was hosting the meeting, and two others whom the Senator brought along, his long time friend and predecessor as Senator, former Chief of State Leia Organa Solo, and her husband retired General Han Solo.

After warm introductions and the usual wary eye or two from General Solo, it was clear the reason the Senator asked Chief Solo to come with him was her experience as former Chief of State and her diplomatic skills and influence overall.

"Senator, Chief, General, Governor-I deeply appreciate you coming all this way to meet with me. I know that our sudden arrival in your galaxy is unexpected, especially as how the Governor told me that you don't get many extra-galactic visitors at all. And I know about the hyper-space barrier. We had to overcome that as well. Anyway, it is my pleasure to meet you. Thank you." greeted Harry.

"You're welcome Captain." replied Senator Omas.

"I was intrigued both by your extra-galactic origin as well as the suggestion you made to the Governor that you might be able to help. And I hope you won't think unkindly of the intrusion, but at my urging the Governor had the sector military scan your ship, since it is foreign and unknown to us." he continued.

"That's quite alright Governor. That makes perfect sense to me." replied Harry.

"Great. Well, what we found was even more intriguing. For one, many of our scans could not even penetrate your hull. It is made of something entirely foreign to us. For the scans that worked, and from what we could deduce from the results, it appears as though you are extremely advanced scientifically." said Senator Omas.

Harry just nodded appreciatively, taking it as a compliment.

"So, with that we actually thought to take seriously the idea that you could help us. Normally I would not be this open to a stranger who just showed up in the middle of a war no less, with advanced technology based on science we don't fully understand. But, you see, the war is going very badly." said Senator Omas.

"We are rather hoping you could quickly put us into formal contact with the proper diplomatic channels with your government. So that we might see how we could help each other. We would have to quickly come to an ability to trust each other enough to be allies, and I am certain your government would not be willing to help us out as pure charity, they will certainly want something in return. As it should be." said Senator Omas.

While the Senator was talking, Harry was using passive Legilimency to determine if he was telling the truth. He was, and he is very scared of these Yuuzhan Vong. It is making him reckless. He was saying far too much for a first contact situation. Good thing for him that the AE are good guys. Nice that they acknowledged they would need to bargain with something though. Funny that he would go so far not really knowing what the AE's strengths are. They couldn't have gotten that much insight from those scans could they? Beside that, how did they know the AE even has more than a dozen ships, or the strength to make a difference?

Harry could tell that General Solo shared some of Harry's own thoughts that Omas talked too much. Chief Solo was hard to read and passive Legilimency got nowhere with her, a sign of a well organized mind.

"Senator. Thank you for your candidness. I am embarrassed since I have been somewhat less than candid with you so far." said Harry.

To which, General Solo just sat back in his chair with a gesture that just said, "Oh here we go. I knew this was too good to be true." and Chief Solo just kept looking at Harry almost with a knowing look, waiting for the penny to drop. Not too concerned about it.

"As you rightfully took scans of my ship and proceeded with some caution, I must admit that going into a first contact situation that I also took much caution of my own. So, I came here on this expedition under the cover story of being a mere Captain." said Harry.

"As it happens, I am actually the right person to talk to about all of that. I am in truth Emperor of the Avalon Empire, the rest of the mission statement is still accurate. I have come on an expedition of peaceful exploration, hoping to meet new and friendly people for trade and cultural exchange." said Harry.

General Solo just scoffed while Chief Solo just placed her hand on his knee and said, "Hon, he's telling the truth."

"Really?" said both Senator Omas and General Solo at the same time.

"How do you know?" asked Governor Monjai.

"Jedi, remember?" replied Chief Solo.

To which Harry's eye's lit up and the Governor just said, "Ah, right. Never mind."

Harry being ever one to want to play along said, "Is it really that simple? I was going to make a speech and everything. What is a Jedi anyway?" asked Harry.

"Well, if that doesn't at least settle that he's from another galaxy, I don't know what." said General Solo, with a little snort of approval. He liked snarkiness in general and attempts to lighten the mood with humor. Shows a persons human side.

"Okay. We'll say that we believe you for now, Emperor. Why would an Emperor come all this way, leading such an expedition yourself? It's not something someone in a similar position here would likely do." asked Senator Omas, trying to get back on task.

"You're right. Where I come from, most people in a similar position might agree. I dare say my wife Hermione, the Empress has often expressed the same thing, and my children would probably very much like it if I didn't. My in-laws are kind enough not to comment." said Harry.

"The truth is that beside being Emperor, by training I am a theoretical scientist. I love to explore, invent, solve problems, and experience new things first hand. I guess it's that and I am still young and full of energy. And most importantly, there is no one in my world that can tell me no. Actually don't tell the Empress I said that." said Harry, cheekily.

"Also, contrary to appearances. I did not actually come alone. My Capitol would string me up if I didn't come well protected, with the resources to live comfortably, work, and survive away from our own galaxy for extended periods of time." said Harry.

"So, as part of precautions for first contact, it appears as though I came here in a simple relatively small cruiser. I did not want to give the impression that I was bearing down on you with a mighty invasion fleet when all I sought was simple first contact. Things would likely to have gone much differently. We did literally just arrive in your galaxy about a week ago." said Harry.

"However, not too far away from where your intercept squadron came out to meet me Governor, I have a small battle-group waiting for me under cloak, as my guard, my protectors-on this first contact mission. Please don't be alarmed as I said. I believe you would agree that an Emperor would not travel lightly under these circumstances without such a protection detail." said Harry.

For the first time jumping into the heart of it. "That all adds up Emperor, and its not our place to have a problem with it. But, I sense there is more to your story about why you've come here. Can you elaborate?" asked Chief Solo.

Harry clamped down on his Occlumency shields. Now Harry knew he had to be careful. Not too much information. Truth but not too much of it. Staying away from the meat of the issue. Plus, this Jedi seemed to be too insightful. So, he'd volley the ball back.

"There is. I was joking a bit before General Solo. One of the things I want to do on this trip is to meet Jedi. Learn more about them and this force. I actually don't know much about it or them yet, but enough to know that I would like to learn more; and possibly work with them on some mutual areas of concern. I would not wish to elaborate more on that until we all got much more comfortable with each other, especially between myself and whomever the leaders of the Jedi are. I don't know if they are part of your government or not. The little reading I have found on the subject seems to paint them as a kind of religion. But, that is another main item that has piqued my personal interest Chief Solo. And am I to understand you are a Jedi? Are you their leader or could you possibly make contact with them for me?" said Harry.

"I am not the leader of the Jedi but I most certainly can let him know you'd like to speak with him sometime. Right now the bulk of the Jedi order is in the midst of some hot action in various segments of the war. My husband and I both actually were just on a small respite, convalescing a bit from our own recent activities in the war." said Chief Solo.

"However, Senator, Governor, Han, I think we can trust him. I sense there is more but nothing sinister on his part." said Chief Solo.

"Thank you Chief. Emperor Potter, then I would like to ask what it is you would actually like from us and what it is you are offering in return." asked Senator Omas.

"Certainly. Well I will tell you what I originally hoped to do when we first arrived. But of course then I didn't know the galaxy is in a state of war. I rather suspect that at this time you might have too much on your hands." said Harry, giving them an easy out.

"Also, normally it is against our policy to freely share our science and technology with other cultures at least until we are formally allied in some way and there is mutual trust. The other consideration being that you would already be a highly advanced space-faring race. We have a rather strict policy about not interfering with primitive or pre-space faring worlds. You are clearly advanced enough but I am concerned about the political instability I've only just started reading about. No offense to present company but I'm thinking about over the millennia, one dark force after another coming behind another light leaning group and taking over, the cycle seems to be never-ending and I'd be afraid right now where some of our technology might end up say a hundred years from now when it's on someone else's watch." said Harry.

Both the Solo's were nodding their heads in agreement with Harry. That certainly made sense. Lord knows they lived that instability literally since the moment they were born in Leia's case.

"However, what I had hoped to do and you can let me know if this is something that could even be considered at this time or not. Is that I was hoping that you would allow us to start a colony on one world here somewhere that we can use as a base for trade with you and to begin to let a small number of our people experience your culture first hand and vice versa." said Harry.

"And for that I would not ask you to spare any currently valuable space on an inhabited or even a habitable world. You see one of the things my race excels at is terraforming planets to their ideal or optimal conditions for sustaining life. We can even move a planets position relative to their star in order to place them into more favorable orbits to the same effect. Of course we will not do such things within a star system that has any sentient life present. It is too risky." said Harry.

"So, what I was going to ask by way of exchange as well as our demonstration of this ability is for you to give us a planet that today you consider uninhabitable but could be made habitable with work and we would make that habitable for ourselves and you would allow us to claim it. Turning something of no value to you today into something valuable. In exchange, we would do the same to any other planet in your galaxy you wish to see made habitable or possibly restored if it was once inhabited but for some reason was made uninhabitable by some kind of calamity." said Harry.

"After that, we hoped that one of our first principle value-add's we would bring as trading partners to your galaxy and as a means of commerce to earn money for our colony and earn our keep, would be to offer the same as a commercial service throughout the galaxy. Now, I would think your government would have a say in whom might ask to have new planets terraformed to create new colonies, so you would always have to approve of any of those requests. But, on the other hand I would think there would be a market for a galaxy this widely colonized and populated for such a rich history, for there to be worlds that need to be cleaned up or restored on a planetary scale." concluded Harry.

"That is an interesting proposal Emperor Potter." said Senator Omas.

"We have limited capabilities in this area. Your description seems to be far in advance of what we can do. It almost sounds a bit like what our long lost legendary founders were reported to have done a million years ago. But, I don't know a lot about that. The approach has merit as well because we would need to really see the full range of your capability in order to decide it was worth the price and frankly the interest to take it seriously." said Senator Omas.

"But, if you can do what you say, you would first have to live by your own results. Then through that and another planet we would choose, as you said, we could see for ourselves. Yes. I can see the merit in this idea." said Senator Omas.

"What do you think Chief, General, Governor?" asked Senator Omas.

"I say give them a shot." said General Solo. "I mean we all know there are dozens if not a hundred previously habitable worlds made unlivable by previous wars and other natural disasters that many races would like to see restored if only it were economical."

"I agree with Han. I can think of one very worthy candidate right off the top of my head." said Chief Solo.

"I bet you can." said General Solo.

"How about you Governor?" asked Senator Omas.

"I think it's a good idea too. The key is how economical is it? I suppose we need to see. I can think of one or two planets in this sector that could use some restoring back to habitability. As far as a planet to give the Avalon Empire in this experimental exchange, I don't think one of those is suitable, but I actually know of one in another sector nearby that might be a good example for them. I believe they would be able to demonstrate both parts of the capability the Emperor discussed in order to set that planet right." said Governor Monjai.

"Which one are you thinking of?" asked Senator Omas.

"Callos, in the Brema sector. It is in the Outer Rim Territories, so the Senate will likely not mind. And it was once a beautiful world inhabited by the now-extinct Callosians. Destroyed by the Empire in 3BBY. Their bombardment destroyed a planetary reactor which managed their environment to maintain a healthy ecosystem. To restore that planet, one would need to clean it up first, then either build another similar type reactor or better, move the planet to an optimal orbit so that no such reactor would ever be needed again. I would think that if they can do all that they say they can, they could have that world." said Governor Monjai.

"Very nice. Good thought." said Senator Omas.

"Chief Solo? You might as well tell us the one you have in mind for us to have them restore for us in exchange." prompt Senator Omas.

"Certainly. The best and most worthy candidate I can think of right now is Caamas in the core. As you all know it was destroyed by the Empire in 19BBY shortly after the Clone Wars. Today, a small remnant of just two hundred fifty beings are there trying to raise money with the help of volunteers, trying to restore it one piece at a time and not able to get far with it at all. You all know the travesty I think of that entire affair. In fact, given the controversies surrounding it now I wouldn't expect Chief Fey'lya to even dare turn down the opportunity to see that done." said Chief Solo, with some passion.

"Hon. It's okay." said General Solo, trying to comfort his wife.

"Yes. Well, given the state of things right now I doubt Chief Fey'lya will even take note of it." said Senator Omas.

"It just so happens that in my committee, I can get this approved and it could move forward without those concerns right now. The war is taking its toll. And I will admit, I am rather favoring this idea Emperor Potter because it will give us a chance to see you in action, witness some of this advanced science and technology. Our people can get to know your people, and we can see if there is something you can do to help us in this war later on. We would need to establish a history of some kind with you first before we took things that far. As much as I'd want to rush any help into the campaign, we still need to proceed with caution and at the speed of politics." said Senator Omas.

"So, with that said ladies and gentlemen. I am going to return to Coruscant and recommend this proposal." concluded Senator Omas.

"Thank you Senator. I appreciate your openness to give us a chance. We won't let you down. I like to think we are the good guys." said Harry.

Then, the group stood to say their goodbyes and tighten up some next steps. It was decided that Emperor Potter could stay on Kal'Shebboi and remain the distinguished guest of the Governor in the meantime. Since they now knew his true identity, he would receive a visiting Head of State guest apartment within the security of the Capitol complex for the duration of his visit, another assigned guard detail from the Governor's security; and him and his guards would be temporarily afforded diplomatic immunity until that is finalized or rejected. In the meantime, the Governor would assign him an official liaison so that they can remain in communication over this matter, while the others returned to Coruscant.

A/N:

9 pages of notes coming up. Don't despair. First, you can skip it if you want. Also, the main body of the story got it's 21 pages. I generally aim for ~20 +/- each time. So, you didn't lose any pages to the notes.

Remember to keep a sense of humor people. And if you don't want to read the word zippitydodah written in context, don't read the rest of these author's notes.

The big boys and girls brought you SWEU. I give you PDSW: Some r2r4l:Potter-Destiny-Star Wars-verse (PDSW) facts:

-Some factoids for advantages vs. disadvantages vs. roughly even for certain elements of Empire/SWEU tech. vs. Alteran/Avalon tech (from the AE POV): not listing all possibilities, just ones I think might be important. Remember-I am making this up for the most part. It doesn't have to be true in someone else's story, just mine. Keep that in mind when you want to say "Nuh Uh, I'm telling my mom and writing you a flame! I did the math and 4565890234 mega joules of turbo laser fire is more powerful than 3312131313 zippitydodahs of plasma fire." Oh shit, did I really just type zippitydodah?

Alteran Advantages:

-more powerful and more flexible shields, backed by immensely more powerful and longer lasting zpm power sources (stamina)

-alteran drones powered by zpm cannot be stopped by SW's shields

-hyper-drives an order magnitude faster, and not limited to hyper-space lanes due to much more advanced hyper-space navigation computers and more advanced sensors and scanners.

-more advance computer and AI across the board, but some if the SW more advanced droids come close in certain discrete capabilities. (SW droids are more specialized).

-sub-space wormhole travel on all of the larger capital ships, and sub-space wormhole stargate travel.

Even:

-Plasma cannons about same damage per second (dps) to borrow gamer parlance as the SW heavy turbo laser cannons. Also, I've read SW fanon where they essentially say turbo lasers actually are the technical equivalent, meaning actually firing plasma as well despite the name.

-Fighter/interceptor stealth and weapons about equal all things considered: except for Alteran fighter's drones (they only carry a dozen) which can still bypass shields but not powered by zpm do not have the same payload; then Jedi flying stealthx's (when they get them) are a pretty even match for IK's in their stealth fighters, otherwise current IK piloted stealth fighters are superior.

-drop ships and heavy bombers, about even except for drones again.

Disadvantages:

-Alteran ships are susceptible to SW standard interdictor and gravity well projectors if the SW can lay it on them, more difficult for them to do since the AE aren't restricted to hyper-space lanes, but if they get it on them it will be affected. Then of course they might be sorry they did but that's another problem.

-Population Numbers, about 10 quadrillion beings in the SW galaxy. Probably about 20+ billion beings in all the AE galaxies combined. The AE mitigates with superior HFR's, but SW counters with inferior but often more heavily weaponized and endless number of droids.

-Same question as above for zpe/magic vs. the force: you'll have to wait and see for that one. Probably a more complex question than you might think. Also, maybe not where some of you think that is going.

-Capital ship sizes. It may not matter too much because of the difference in their weapons, shields, power, and fighter load-outs even per sq. km. are different. But, for some comparison. The Destiny Mk II battle-cruisers are 747m long, 518m wide at wingtip, the Liberator's are 12km long, and the one Leviathan is 60km long. By contrast, an ISD1 and ISD2 is 1,600m long, the older Victory SD is 900m, Venator SD is 1,137m, Acclimator Assault ship is 752m (very close in size to Destiny Mk II...of course that is where the comparison stops); the big-boys, Super Star Destroyers (SSD) is 8,000m long with more rare variations built up to 19,000m long (Executor). In terms of numbers built you can compare the AE Liberator class (there are currently just under 500 by my last count), and of all the SW SSD models there were upwards of 250 made from what I've read (all theories, no canon). Make of all of that what you will. Just things I believe some people will want to know as they read along.

-The Star Wars Galaxy aka Sky River, or Caelum in Latin, is in fact actually the Triangulum Galaxy, so saw we all.

-The Yuuzhan Vong Galaxy is the Pisces Dwarf, because of it being the closest other galaxy to Triangulum in real life, possibly even its satellite galaxy (although it might also be Andromeda's satellite or neither). Anyway, making it the best candidate for them to have come from in my retconned playing with the local group of galaxies. Its good enough, only using it as a reference anyway (I think).

-There was a hyperspace disturbance at the edge of the Star Wars galaxy. It's entire history will be one of my own making in this story. If that differs with what you read in the SWEU books or whatever, remember you aren't reading their story anymore, you're reading mine and I am just borrowing those things and retconning them to fit my story. And it would be best for you to assume the same of anything I say about something you heard of before as lore or whatever in SW/SWEU, because I will be doing a lot of that to facilitate bringing the Alterans into the picture. Why, you ask? Because there were no Alterans in SW/SWEU, so if I don't, then none of this stuff I'm going to say will make any sense. Thus, by the purist of pure magic being that the author of ones own story is always right, it will make sense and work, because I say so. See how easy that is?

-Size of the Star Wars galaxy, number stars, and worlds, and population. There are many diverse opinions about the many diverse opinions on this subject including the non-canon published works of the SWEU and stuff. I'm not going to write a whole chapter of thesis with references on this even though I could (but I will give you a couple pages worth to satisfy the fan boys and girls). If someone writes to ask me to elaborate more on this, the answer is no. You've been forewarned. I have taken all that I wished to into consideration and am retconning the Star Wars galaxy into my story in the following way. I had to make a choice which way to go. I am actually choosing the way opposite of what I personally believe because if I don't I will have people up in arms that I purposely reduced the power of the Star Wars galaxy to make it too easy (again) for Harry when he goes there.

I have essentially taken the population and planets numbers most often quoted (even though I think they are way off in the first place) and divided them by ten. That is because the fanon published numbers base everything off their being 400 billion stars in the galaxy, whereas the Triangulum in real life has only 40 billion stars. Walla, instant arithmetic. Hurrah. I still think the numbers are stupidly large, but it won't actually matter in my story any more than it did in George Lucas' original because just like in the original you will only get to see tiny fractions of it in this story. The rest is background and reference material for the feeling of scale and flavor, just like it was in the original. Without going into the thesis side of things in this paragraph (it will be below in case anyone still cares by that point). I will simply say that the tiny little rebellion forces could not have defeated the Empire's military, according to otherwise quoted numbers of their respective force strengths. So, one or the other is true. I am going to use some of those ridiculous numbers (re-scaled as I see fit) that I don't really believe anyway to maintain some continuity with SWEU fandom and simply say that in my story's version of lore, the rebellion didn't just defeat all those military forces. That they never actually engaged most of them as they were spread out all over the galaxy and as they began to cut off the heads, some started defecting to them, many Moff's falling back into local sector power struggles killing each other off, blah, blah, blah. So, in this version of the universe they had 40 billion stars, 18 billion had planets that could support life, 320 million habitable star systems, 100 million systems actually populated, 6.9 million systems were part of Galactic Empire, with 175,000 full member worlds, population was more than 10 quadrillion beings.

**Bonus: For those that are interested another frequent counter to the big numbers thesis it is that the focus of the movies and the story was on the Rebellion, which only ever showed us really small numbers of things. So, it is likely that the rebellion represents the true scale of what's in the galaxy but the writers just wanted the "rest of the galaxy" to seem enormous (eye candy and feeling of unbelievable scope) so they wrote it that way. Meaning that the "rest of the galaxy" wasn't given as much thought as the people publishing SWEU fan books and reference guides gave credence to but then deduced all the way to hell and back in all the published nonsense we all now have to work off of. Nevertheless, I am going with my own version of the really big galaxy thesis and I explained above how the rebellion would've beaten them in this little world, just so that we don't have to completely suspend all disbelief.

Why did I get into this subject at all? It's because whenever anyone touches the Star Wars facts at this level, 40 quadrillion fan boys and girls come out of the wood work to criticize and complain about everything, including each others pet opinion on the matter. I don't want to hear any of it. So, I am just laying down the law and giving just enough nuggets of data to hopefully satisfy anyone's curiosity as to why I went the way I did.

\- Okay, another important set of numbers that always sets people off. How big was the Empire's fleet at its peak, hence what therefore could the remnants look like under the New Republic regimes and those that follow... The main key factoid most often used to begin the justification of numbers is the infamous "Pellaeon's Lament," which I don't even remember the source for, but it pops up everywhere when this subject is debated: "A thousand systems left, out of an Empire that had once spanned a million. Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them." (so... 25,000+ Star Destroyers, and he would've been talking about any mix of ISD1's and ISD2's)."

It is also often stated that for every Star Destroyer there were about 100 other vessels from frigates to shuttles (which seems somewhat logical, so I use it to here and in Harry's Navy). It is also often stated that a standard sector defense group equaled 24 Star Destroyers (therefore a full armada of 2400 ships). And others will say that since (or if, because it changes over time), that there were 2,000 members of the Senate for each Sector/Senate seat, that there should be 48,000 Star Destroyers in total. But, after the Ruusan reformation (prior to the Empire business), the galaxy was reorganized into 1,024 regional sectors (source: Clone Wars Incredible Cross Sections). This multiplied by the 24 per sector yields 24,576 Star Destroyers, which is close to the "Pellaeon's Lament" 25,000 marker. (source: lisagordon1138 DOT wordpress DOT com 2011 08 14 star-destroyers)

Therefore, in my story the lore will be that the Empire at it's peak agrees with Pellaeon (who ought to be a trusted source, if you can trust the author who put those words in his mouth :) So: 25,000 Star Destroyers, plus 2,500,000 other support and escort ships from cruisers, to frigates, to shuttles, etc. spread out across a galaxy with how many sectors and how many inhabited worlds again? Ah, well. There you go. We have to work with something.

A note in comparison to how Harry spread out his version of sector defense. Obviously Harry has been going way over those number, with the standard set to 3 battle-cruisers per protected planet. So, his forces are more dense than you see in the SWEU. At the moment, his military scale not even including his tactical advantages is almost double the size in pure numbers as the Empire was at its peak. So, without undoing any of the AE current strength I will just write it going forward so that he thins it out as they expand, reducing the relative total overall. We'll just say he was paranoid in the early days and overbuilt.

\- If you are still here reading the authors' notes. Here is a:

** Double-Bonus Tidbit, for those who want some more detail on: "the galaxy and the Empire's military is just too damned big problem." I don't remember the source, but I copied this from somewhere else because it was a good summation of the argument.

""The Size of The Rebellion (PROBLEM):

Now back to the gap: how do we go from 25,000 Star Destroyers to only 200? Consider how long the Rebels have to accomplish this task. [and remember as you're thinking about this how "powerful?" the rebellion was that they showed us in canon-me] The height of the Empire we can generally take to be just before open civil war when they would suffer losses. This would be, in common reckoning, 2BBY at the Treaty of Corellia and the Declaration of Civil War later that year. Pellaeon is making his lament in 19 ABY, but this is not the low point of the Empire. That falls under the time of Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose fleet in 9 ABY, which was the largest amassing of any of the Remnant factions and was deemed unquestionable in authority and size, had a whopping 14 Star Destroyers : 6 Imperial-class Star Destroyers in his personal armada, three others, two Victory-Class, and three Interdictor-Class Star Destroyers.

By that, Pellaeon should feel damn lucky to have 200 at his disposal!

This means that the Rebels would have to bring over 25,000 down to likely less than 100 let alone 200. Unfortunately we don't know how many over 25,000 there were, so we can be generous and consider 25,000 as a static number and bring it down to 200. The Rebels have 11 years to accomplish this which would yield a rate of 2,254.545 Star Destroyers destroyed a year, or, with 368 days in a Galactic Standard Year, a rate of 6.126 a day. ""

-Me again. I think that's pretty damned good work for the Rebellion considering they had a couple Mon Calamari Cruisers, some Nebulon-B Frigates, a Millennium Falcon, and a couple handfuls of star fighters. Oh yeah, and they owned an ion cannon too. But I think they lost that. Oh well.


	24. Chapter 24

"According to Thuruht, the oldest of the Killik hives, "the Ones are what the Celestials become."

Chapter 24

Timeframe: 2013-2014 (25-26 ABY), continued.

The next couple weeks were somewhat quiet for Harry. Senator Omas had sent word back that it would take two more weeks to get the proposal up for a vote.

So, in that time Harry and Hermione took breaks to use the stargate network to go home and spend some time with their children. Meanwhile the probe analysis and intelligence gathering continued. They resolved to not let this expedition keep them apart from their kids for too long at any one stretch.

Many of their fleet who had families, if both parents were in the fleet, actually deployed with them aboard the Leviathan. Harry and Hermione didn't want to risk their kids beside them in harms way like that since people in their positions are sometimes targets of assassins and other nut-jobs. And those people would target their kids first for leverage and who knew what.

When they were back in Triangulum, they spent some time looking at probe analysis of the two planets the Republicans had suggested and planned tentative next steps if they got approved. And spent some time going over what intelligence gathered on Yuuzhan Vong ship and weapons capabilities. The military analysts noted that they relied heavily on biological gravimetric phenomenon, genetically engineered to serve them as weapons, shields, and propulsion.

So Harry and his science teams began theorizing on ways to turn that to their advantage. He had a number of ideas already, but he also wanted to see what the Republic did that worked and didn't work. If and when the opportunity presented itself he would ask the Republic if they had any captured specimens they could turnover to the AE for study.

While this was going on he had the new shipyard build a duplicate of their sixty-four saucer array exogenesis machine inside of a new mothership carrier designed simply to ferry the large system to the distant worlds it would be needed on. The mothership had only modest living and work quarters for humanoid work crews and operators, but carried heavy molecular construction beams and large cargo holds for materials, and facilities for transporting and creating new HFR's as needed.

The new exogenesis mother-ship was five kilometers tall by two point five kilometers wide and nine kilometers long, possessed hyper-drives, anti-grav, and shields but no weapons. It was purposely made boxy looking to appear more like the industrial ship it is and therefore while large would hopefully not appear intimidating.

Also, Harry ran into his first materials limitation. They used up most of the fleet's spare ZPMs to build that thing. It was a power hog, especially when it was used in gravity well mode to adjust planetary orbits.

So, Harry both called in to the Capitol to replenish his fleets ZPM spares, and built and deployed a ZPM construction platform in the Triangulo star, that would begin to supply them with ten per month.

The next material issue that came up was lacking a local supply of trinium and neutronium, their most commonly used but rare minerals. He was toying with the idea of creating a Triangulum version of his nanites so he could achieve the same replicator efficiency in their manufacturing processes but using materials more common to this galaxy. That would take some research first.

Finally, three weeks had passed and the Governor sent word that the Senate approved Senator Omas proposal, thanks in part to impassioned pleas made by former Chief Solo for the opportunity to restore war ravaged worlds.

Senator Omas who was unsurprisingly delegated oversight of this project. With the cooperation of the Jedi order he was sending Jedi Master Corran Horn, who was asked to return from a leave of absence from the Jedi Order for this project, assisted by Jedi Knight Ohali Soroc (Duros female), to serve as Jedi liaisons to the Avalon Empire in this project.

Three weeks later the Jedi arrived at Kal'Shebbol which was still Harry's official residence in the Republic.

In addition to the Jedi, the Republic sent a half dozen other observers, along with an observer from Governor Monjai since she sponsored all this, she would keep an eye on it, plus a dozen representatives from the Governor of the Brema sector who was currently responsible for the lifeless world.

The group decided on a mixed fleet to escort the exogenesis carrier first to Callos then to Caamas, so that no one got the wrong ideas when they saw these unrecognizable ships traveling around. The AE had the exogenesis carrier flanked by four Destiny escorts, and one Knight-Carrier with its full complement that would serve as Harry's personal flagship on the deployment.

In this way, the Republicans would get to see some more of their capabilities, while knowing this was only one of their light-carriers used for special missions. The AE detachment would be escorted by one small Sabre-class Star Destroyer serving as the Jedi and Republic civilians flagship, escorted by four Tartan-class patrol cruisers. While Master Horn commanded the mission from the Destroyer, Jedi Knight Soroc accompanied Emperor Potter as his personal liaison to the Republic aboard his flagship.

For opsec reasons, only the people at the top of the chain of command and both Jedi knew that Harry was an Emperor. During the mission and other casual public conversations of mixed audience, he would continue to simply be addressed as Captain.

"Captain Potter, this is Master Horn. The fleet is ready to launch when you give the all clear."

"Roger, we're clear. We can begin." replied Harry.

The fleet launched and everyone was slaved to the Destroyer's hyper-space navigation beacon, meaning that from Harry's perspective they were going very slow. It took almost two days to get from Kal'Shebbol to Callos which was literally just up the road core-ward on a major hyper-drive corridor.

"So, Knight Soroc, may I ask how does one become a Jedi Knight?" asked Harry.

During the trip he took the time to get to know her and pumped her for all kind of information on the basics of Jedi life, from how they were identified as young and taken into the order to be trained. The ship was full of Imperial Knights who made no effort to pretend they didn't have abilities of their own. It wasn't taboo to use zpe/magic in the AE every day life. And Harry wanted to encourage her to demonstrate her force powers, but she steadfastly refused citing their was no reason for it and that they are taught that the force is not a toy to be played with, shared, or showed off.

At one point he allowed her to watch one if the IK's training sessions and he joined one of his friends for a brief spar. He did not train as they did and was nowhere on their level in hand to hand combat or certain specialized tactics they trained in. But he did some practice on his own and was much more powerful than the average Novum.

So Knight Soroc got treated to watching the Imperial Knights pull off what she saw as force leaps, expert staff fighting, staves that could shoot bolts of high energy plasma, seeming to magically bind people in ropes, and real shockingly watched them demonstrate turning invisible at will, fire bolts of the same plasma from their hands, and appearing to summon and un summon high-tech looking suits of armor and weapons right onto their bodies in mid-leap.

Then watched Emperor Potter himself actually appear to effortlessly fly around the room and use telekinesis to summon objects to himself. And for a coup de grace, when Harry got nicked up and bruised in his spar, she watched in amazement as he just waved his hand over the injured area and it was completely healed. She'd never seen anyone do anything like that before. Even Master Cilghal couldn't heal like that.

On top of that, having spent two days living aboard the AE ship, sleeping, showering, eating in the same manner as the AE crew, she could not believe some of their technology. They literally beamed themselves with matter transporters from one end if the ship to the other. Food was replicated they called it with the same type of beams right before ones eyes.

The ship pilots and other officers sat in comfortable chairs that had neural gel packs and neural head bands that made the ship systems respond to their thoughts. There were not that many dials to push and turn doing their jobs, and the level of quality in their holograms was off the chart. She had a lot to report to Master Horn.

But first, they had arrived in very high orbit of Callos, a desolate and frozen world that looked nothing like the old pictures of it.

"Master Horn, this is Captain Potter. We are ready to begin. Based on our analysis it would be best first for us to shift the planet into an optimal orbit. Then as the ice is melted and we clean the environment, the new ecosystem would take hold more efficiently." said Harry.

"Very well Captain, everything is confirmed go on our end. You may proceed." said Master Horn.

The Jedi and Republican crews watched as the nine kilometer long industrial ship maneuvered free of the fleet and opened its bay doors. They had no idea what to expect, and they were amazed to watch sixty-four one kilometer diameter saucer shaped craft come out of the bottom of the ship eight at a time. Then in groups flew over to another orbital position and reformed into a convex shape of sixty-four nearly touching but not.

Then the formation broke off with fifty-five moving off to the other side of the planet mostly out of their view, and the remaining nine took off slowly as one on a radial from the planet to its star, slowly separating from each other, putting more and more equidistant space between them as the maneuvered to their pre-set optimal positions.

"Master Horn, the saucer sections will take a while now to finish maneuvering into position." said Harry.

"Does anyone have any questions so far?" asked Harry.

"I do," asked one of the human observer's. "How does this work?" she asked.

"The fifty-five saucer sections that are heading to the opposite side of the planet will land in a preset arrangement so that they envelop equidistantly over sixty percent of the planet from an artificially designated tractor anchoring center." said Harry.

"The other nine are maneuvering into positions between the star and the desired new location of the planets orbit." said Harry.

"Then, the fifty-five on the surface will lock on to the nine in space with trans-phasic anti-graviton beams that run completely and safely through the planet out the other side to the other nine. Then the nine in space will conversely lock on to the fifty-five on the opposite side of the surface of the planet with their trans-phasic tractor beams." said Harry.

"Then the nine in space will maneuver and adjust the power of their tractor beams as necessary relative to each other and the pull of the star; and pull the planet into its new position." said Harry.

"Finally, the saucers will forcibly re-establish the necessary angular momentum and spin velocity for the new optimal stable orbit. The star and the other gravimetric forces in the system will take it from there." said Harry.

"And that is essentially it for this part, the saucers would then either return to their mothership or in this case, they will assume position around the planet in readiness to begin phase two." said Harry.

"How long will it take?" asked another observer.

"This process will take one week. There is nothing else for us to do now except to monitor it." said Harry.

...

The week passed. Harry had some one on one time with Master Horn who wanted to follow-up with him directly after getting reports from Knight Soroc.

"So, you're telling me that you get these abilities through your races innate ability to sense and channel something called zero point energy and you say that it's not the same as the force?" asked Master Horn.

"I have not had the chance to study the force in any depth, but I don't believe it is the same. I looked into some of your written works on the subject and they discuss something called midichlorians and it is said that they are intelligent microscopic life forms that live symbiotically inside the cells of all living things. When present in sufficient numbers, they could allow their host to detect the energy field known as the Force. And that Midichlorian counts are linked to potential in the Force, ranging from normal Human levels of 2,500 per cell to the much higher levels of Jedi." said Harry.

"As far as I know, no other species outside of your galaxy exhibits this life form living in ones cells. So, at the moment I am inclined to believe until proven otherwise that this phenomenon is somehow unique to your galaxy. Perhaps that has something to do with that huge hyper-space energy distortion that surrounds the galaxy." said Harry, trying to drop some hints.

Harry managed to careful avoid explaining conversely how his race's powers work because Master Horn was still trying to digest that...opinion. Which is all Harry wanted to avoid at that point, at least until he had an audience with their order's leader, who apparently was Chief Solo's brother, Luke Skywalker.

"Well, I don't know. I'm not a scientist myself. I will pass your thoughts on to Master Skywalker and hopefully he'll find time to discuss it with you some time." said Master Horn.

What Harry is not ready to share with the underlings yet is that he knew exactly where the force originally came from but, this midichlorian business was news to him. As Harry went off to contemplate this for a while it occurred to him that his suggestion to Master Horn might be exactly dead on.

That maybe the galactic trap worked, but the Maw trap could not prevent all the raw "force" energy from continuing to leak into the galaxy. Perhaps it caused a mutation. It is said that every living being in this galaxy possesses this mutation, this symbiotic microscopic living organism. It's only the amount of it in ones cells that determine if they can sense or shape the force to do their will or not.

Much like how in their race, a properly formed Pineal gland allows them to sense raw zero point energy and to draw certain amounts of it organically from the quantum vacuum and then likewise shape it to do their will, which was also oscillated by how much brain capacity and will power they have, which attenuates how much strength they have with it. He hoped that he would get permission to study this force and midichlorians on real live Jedi. Of course in return he would probably have to allow them to study his race. But, all is fair and all that.

He noted that the Jedi are quick to want to leap to the conclusion that it must be one and the same thing. But, Harry believed he knew otherwise and would until proven otherwise. Unless for some reason the mutation gave the people the ability to do the same thing with zpe that his can, only in a different way. In which case the mutation might only be the cause of the people's ability to use the force (or zpe), but not the source of the actual energy they are drawing on. The two issues do not need to be either mutually exclusive or inclusive. It needed to be studied first.

Looking back at the classified records, the family of Lantean colonists that transformed into "The Ones," because of the mistake they made claimed that the energy of the force was leaking into the galaxy through those pools they created in their ascension experiment. Their actions to divide it from the one into the two and to separate the two diametrically opposing extremes into their children was supposed to keep it from getting out of control. But, for all they knew they only succeeded to some degree at that but did not prevent leakage altogether. Unfortunately the logs didn't include any direct statements from them, just those from the other colonists who were trying to help them and finally abandoned the effort. Maybe this midichlorian mutation is a result of that sentient energy still looking for a host and an outlet.

Harry had a quiet dinner alone and retired to his state room to review the notes he took from those records:

Start of Harry's notes from when he first looked at this back on Atlantis:

\- One point five million years ago, a Lantean expedition departed to the Triangulum galaxy, going by the cover name "Celestials" in honor of our planet of origin, Celestis. They had to give out a name and they didn't want to draw attention to themselves by calling themselves Lanteans or Alterans. HP-They really should have picked a better cover name.

\- Then, between one point five million years ago to one million years ago, members of that colony experimented with an unorthodox and previously discredited and banned means of attempting to ascend. HP-No wonder they were eager to get out of Pegasus for that experiment.

\- Then, one million years ago a father, son, and daughter of one particular family from the colony emerged as the avatars for the balance of the sentient energy the parents "accidentally" unleashed which they called 'the force'. Their mother was the one who first attempted the experiment and became consumed by it and sacrificed her life to prevent the uncontrolled spread of "it" ('the force',) and both saved and doomed her family by dividing the powers of 'the force' between them, sacrificing her life in the attempt.

Harry paraphrased in his notes a summary of the general heart of what happened from all his reading of the sequential logs.

Harry's own classified log entry, subsequent to his reviewing the file:

The full facts about the incident according to the logs was that 'The Ones' were what remained of a family of Lantean's who's ascension experiment had unintended consequences. They created an ethereal substrate between the planes by perverting an unproven method used to stabilize membranes between inter-dimensional rifts in certain experiments, and thereby directly accessed a measure of the incorporeal sentient background energy of the higher plane where the ascended bodily live as beings of pure energy...resulting in their tapping into a rift or pool of this energy which then sought sentience and freedom in the material plane.

At first they thought they succeeded. The mother went first. She drank from and then fully immersed herself in the ethereal substrate, which they nicknamed a pool because of its appearance. But the sentient energy of the higher plane is not meant to be wielded by ordinary mortals in the material plane, and she could not. But through her it began to act. Pulling and twisting her psyche between the extremes of good and evil, order and chaos, dreams and nightmares, pulling from her own memories the extremes of emotions, motives, and intentions, the list of diametric opposites goes on and on. She did not ascend and she could not wield or take the power. It wielded her.

The people closest by were her husband, her son, and her daughter. The power tried to act through her to consume them. Her unyielding love for her family gave her the mental strength to make one last series of moves on gut instinct alone. She mentally grasped control of the power long enough to split the pool into two fonts, two rifts, and separated the two diametric motives one into each, good and evil, order and chaos; and then knowing she was going to lose control that very second, reached out with her last bit of control and used the power of this 'force' to throw one of each of her children into each pool to become the new avatar of each power. Then with her last gasp sacrificed her own existence, thus ending the sentient stream of power that was trying to pass through her, by dissipating her consciousness into oblivion, and merging her raw life energy with her husbands.

How she suddenly knew how to do all of this to achieve the effect she needed to perform to stop the thing from taking control and spreading ad naseum is unknown. But it was always believed by the research team that continued to study it for millennia afterward, that it had to be the sudden spark of infinite knowledge afforded to the ascended. The effect was the creation of the new primordial force beings that thereafter called themselves 'The Ones.' She could not seal the rift, and she could not consume its power, but she partially tamed it by forcing its two new diametrically opposed primal natures apart into her two children with her aim being to achieve a balance instead of letting it simply consume them, destroy them, and move on from there as one to consume everything else.

The consequence of merging her energy with her husband, without her actual consciousness going along for the ride was to destroy the individual entity that was coalescing and becoming inside of her, while giving her husband her strength and her new meta-physical connection to the primordial power, with him serving as an anchor. Thus, he could continue to exercise strength and authority over the children. But only they could draw new power from their respective pools. Or so the colony all believed, because 'The Ones' so believed, at least for a long time until what followed later.

From then forward the power was in balance most of the time because of the love and understanding of the father for his children and the children for their father and each other, even though the children did cause imbalances from time to time due to their normal sibling rivalry. It was a risky, sacrificial, and brilliant move, and today we could have higher regard for her and for them, if they hadn't hidden from the colony to conduct the banned experiment and created the problem in the first place. Of course it was not the children's fault. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Nevertheless, it was with 'The Ones' cooperation and assistance that the remainder of their small colony studied the phenomenon for the following nine hundred thousand years, and erstwhile terraformed some planets to be optimal for human life and tried to guide and nurture the developing human life they seeded in the galaxy.

Finally, the colony concluded they would be unable to reverse the process and seal the rift without most likely destroying the galaxy in the process. In fact they had come up with one sure fire way to do it that specifically involved destroying the galaxy. A non-starter obviously. Not long after that a mortal human woman came to the planet where 'The Ones' lived, normally in seclusion. And they took her on as their servant, with eventually growing to be called mother by the children, as she became a loving member of the family and often helped smooth things between the frequently warring son and daughter, and for that period actually helped stabilize the balance in the force. However, she was mortal and aged. So, having watched the children as they occasionally drank from their respective pools (secretly and against their fathers wishes).

She eventually did the foolish and unforgivable thing of drinking from the font of power (evil, chaos) and bathing in the pool of knowledge (good, order) as 'The Ones' had come to call them. She got the immortality and power she wanted but she ceased being mother, and became Abeloth, The Bringer of Chaos. She attacked the children, who were barely saved in time by the father.

It was then with heavy hearts, and at the suggestion and assistance of 'The Ones' and with the assistance of the Thuruht hive of a non-human race called the Killiks, that they built the Centerpoint Station, Sinkhole Station, the machine at Kessel, and other devices which helped create and maintain the Maw and imprison Abeloth along with the two fonts. The Maw is what became of the original Lantean (Celestial) colony and star system. Being unable to permanently seal the rift, they chose to isolate it and bury it, galactically speaking, as deep as they could.

It is the perpetual directive of the Lantean High Council, that if a solution ever presented itself, to return to Triangulum and the Maw to destroy Abeloth along with the Two Fonts. Until they could design a way to destroy the fonts and close the rift to the higher plane, they would leave Abeloth there as a form of buffer or heatsink. It was hoped and believed that her presence would continue to absorb the continuous leak of this 'force' energy from the rift so that it did not spread widely through the galaxy, since her new body was immortal and could handle and dissipate the excess energy like nothing else could. Consequently, the High Council ordered the galactic hyper-space nullification zone created to prevent space travel to and from the galaxy; as a failsafe to keep Abeloth and the Rift contained should the Maw trap not hold.

HP-They apparently never went back to check on it before they ascended. Who knows what we'll find there.

HP-Need to go there and check on the status of the Hyper-space nullification zone, the Maw, as well as travel to Mortis, to speak to 'The Ones' and see if there is anything we can do to close that rift.

End of Harry's notes.

Harry didn't sleep well that night and he was having thoughts that the force didn't actually seem so bad to him the way these Jedi use it, but the rift itself is still bad if it creates creatures like Abeloth and could do what it did to the children's birth mother. In his dreams he kept thinking up questions and answers and ideas. They key seems to be actually drinking it or touching it. If we 'could' just lock it up, it would be almost as good as 'closing' it wouldn't it? It was puzzling how it could've caused a mutation to all life. But then again, when we use our Dakara wave on an entire galaxy the effectively can do the same thing, including programming in mutations or specific strands of DNA as we wish. Perhaps it was something like that. For all Harry's inherited advanced knowledge, genetics was not actually his thing.

The next morning he woke up with an idea. "Eureka?! Maybe." He thought, "What if we find another more permanent, self-sustaining, technological way to 'heat-sink' those fonts combined with another safe or safer way to dissipate the excess or bleed-off energy and place that device right up to the smallest femtometer as close to the event horizon we can of the two fonts. Then just seal up that entire complex and protect it from external access with even more technology, shields and cloaks and automated weapon systems, etc."

He got started on his day feeling a little better that he had an idea that might be at least helpful to improve the situation. But, it would take research. He had another job to do today.

Harry tried to put those thoughts out of his head as he focused on the mission. The next step was to terraform the planet. That part wouldn't take as long with the machines but, then they would need to wait at least two more weeks for the newly repaired ecosystem to function on its own, another month after that to call it stabilized. They didn't have to wait to start building a presence there but they would wait that long to permanently move any people there to live on the planets surface.

Harry engaged the machine to start the next phase of the work and they all watched as the sixty-four saucers took up equidistant positions around the globe. Once they were in place, the machines engaged and slowly descended into the atmosphere, flashing many bright lights across all spectrums; performing a variety of tasks simultaneously.

The ice melted causing floods, which would eventually recede. The atmosphere improved and sub-freezing temperatures abated. The machine actually artificially warmed the water to its optimal temperature, allowing the water cycle to self heal more rapidly. Radiation from the planetary reactor explosion was cleaned. The surface of the crust was cleaned. The waters purified. The surface soils regenerated like the best top soil found anywhere.

On the second day, as the flooding from the ice melt receded, landscapes of damaged remains of old buildings and roads, the last hint that a previous civilization once lived there emerged into view.

"Master Horn, I just want to clarify that we are being given carte blanche with this planet before we proceed. The next step will include matter reconstruction that will rapidly recycle all the visible remains of the planets old inorganic infrastructure into recycled material stockpiles." said Harry.

"You are clear to operate. This planet is yours once we're done here. The civilization that used to call this planet home all died and long ago anyone who wanted to come here to look through the remains of infrastructure or of people's friends and families to re-claim anything did so long ago." replied Master Horn.

"Very well. Then we will proceed. Let us all take a moment of silence in remembrance of the lost people of this world before we continue." said Harry, bowing his head and waiting for some time before continuing.

"Okay, begin next phase." Harry ordered, quietly.

Then all was amazed to see the saucer sections take up low positions, less than thirty-thousand feet from the surface. Thousands of beams of white light lanced out repeatedly and very quickly from each of the discs; everything they touched simply disappeared as if into thin air and then moments later they watched as sixty-four corresponding well organized zones around the planet grew with stockpiles of recycled raw materials.

The non-AE members of the team all gasped in surprise.

"My word, Captain. How are you doing that?" asked Master Horn.

"That is a combination of our very advanced molecular matter construction technology combined with our matter transportation (beaming) technology and a very sophisticated materials recycling AI." said Harry.

"Can you build and manufacture things that fast too?" asked one of the civilian observers.

"Almost, nearly so. Taking things apart has always been easier than putting things together. Don't you think?" Harry said, as if what everyone was witnessing wasn't the most amazing thing any of them had ever seen. It was just another casual day at the office for him.

A number of the civilians and the Jedi made eye contact with each other and their brows lifted toward their foreheads as if as one, thinking, 'Well isn't this interesting,' each one with their own list of people they would need to tell about this.

...

The next day the group watched as the newly christened 'Avenging Angel' (Harry wanted to call it 'The Vulture' after what he was actually doing there), suggested by the young Duros Jedi Knight, Ohali Soroc. It can't hurt diplomacy and PR to let the young native Republican Jedi name it. "Better her idea than yours." Hermione said, sagely. When he told her about it later.

So, without much further ado. The fleet followed the Sabre-class Destroyer into the Core, to Caamas. Another advance team from the Senator's office had already gone there to let the two hundred fifty Caamasi and Ithorian on the ground already working, know about the planned restoration project. When the fleet arrived they would have already packed up and been ready to join the crew of the Star Destroyer which was the only ship in the fleet with room to accommodate all of them temporarily while the work is being done.

The trip took ten days. While it was going on Harry holo-called Hermione and told her she was clear to send another battle-group to Callos to begin the construction of their new colony and military outpost. This colony would only be sparsely settled in the beginning by portions of the fleet staff and some of the civilian engineers and other volunteers. They were not ready to commit a full standard colony ship to this galaxy yet. But, they would establish a small presence where they could begin interacting with the government at large and actually begin to operate their 'Avenging Angel' planetary restoration business and begin to engage in trade and cultural exchange with neighboring planets in the sector; and start making a good name for themselves. They would let it grow organically from there as necessary. The Liberators were to remain cloaked for the time being while in orbit providing all command and support, but they were free to let their eighteen Destiny's be seen around as the Republican's were now accustomed to seeing them and they are just average size capital ships relative to what one sees in the galaxy. They didn't want to look completely unprotected after all.

...

Ten days later they arrived in orbit of Caamas where they were also met by the Millennium Falcon, bringing Chief Solo and General Solo docked with the Star Destroyer and joined the observation of the events. Caamas had been a personal project of hers since 2 BBY and 0 BBY since she led the first mercy mission there.

This operation took two days and they were all just as suitably impressed as the others during the first mission. Since they had some down time while it worked, Leia who had gotten a report from Master Horn asked to have a private conversation with Emperor Potter to get a demonstration of some of the abilities he showed the other two Jedi. And by private, that meant both her and Han.

"Please Chief, if you want you can just call me Harry in private." said Harry.

"Well then Harry," said Han, shaking his hand. In that case, please call us Han and Leia as well.

"We heard many interesting things about you and the abilities of your Imperial Knights. We thought it sounded a good bit like our Jedi Knights, so we were intrigued." said Leia.

"Okay, but your Jedi refused to demonstrate any of their abilities for me, so if you wouldn't mind returning the favor I'll demonstrate a few things I can do if you would do the same." said Harry.

She actually agreed. Apparently she wasn't a full time Jedi and so didn't always follow all their stuffy rules. And she told him that if Harry told Luke she called them stuffy rules she would deny it.

So, Leia demonstrated with her light saber which made Harry give a few oohs and aahs for once. Usually it's everyone showing amazement the other way around.

She demonstrated telekinesis by picking up a holo-tablet which is something she was curious about anyway, they didn't exactly have those sorts of things. Holo tables and even holo picture cubes yes, but nothing as small as a mere tablet that doubled as a working personal computer as well.

Harry demonstrated summoning his quantum nanite armor, letting her try her light saber on it which did not harm it at all; then dismissed it. Frankly, he was just as curious to see how that would do as she was.

She was curious about their molecular construction devices, so he gave her several demonstrations at once.

He held his hand out over the floor and microscopic nanites poured fourth out of his expansion dimension pack he always carried on his belt, which of course she couldn't see until they began taking some shape-he rapidly used a nanite swarm to construct a small portable molecular construction table. Then, used it to have it create a brand new holo-tablet for her, which he gave her to keep as a gift.

She and Han just sat there with there jaws dropped.

"H- H- How, in mercy's sake did you do that?" asked Leia.

"That is not a force power. Is that some kind of magic?" asked Leia.

"No, all technology. I made that table from a swarm of microscopic artificially intelligent nanites that can take the shape of anything I know how to make, or in certain cases any forms I've pre-programmed them to take. I think it looks like magic to you because you can't see the microscopic nanites until it begins to take a visible shape. In this case I used them to make a small portable molecular construction device, which is one of our most advanced technologies. The same basically that is used in our exogenesis machines recycling and construction functions by the way only there in an enormous scale. I simply used it to manufacture you a holo-tablet the same way we would manufacture any other one." said Harry.

"Okay, but that is still probably the most advance thing I've ever seen. And I still don't understand? Where did all those microscopic nanites come from? They just seemed to pour out of your hand." pressed Leia.

"Oh, that. Well, if you thought that was like magic you might hardly believe the answer to that. I carry around a small pouch on my belt, see?" Harry said pointing to it. "Which contains a weight-less personal artificial pocket dimension that serves as a very large expansion space, in which I keep trillions of the things as well as many other things I find handy to have with me at all times." said Harry.

Han and Leia just sat there blinking owlishly at Harry, alternating between glancing at each other than back at him, with their mouths dropped.

"Harry, I don't know what to say. Your race might be the most advanced species I've ever heard of or met since well, the ancient Architects, the Celestials, who founded life in our galaxy." said Leia.

Harry tried real hard not to react to that statement even emotionally hoping that she would not detect any reaction of his to that statement even in the force, even though it was very difficult when he blushed at her statement. He knew nothing about how that works yet.

"Thank you. Our race is quite old ourselves. We are very advanced, I won't lie about it. But, I hope that won't stop us from continuing to be friends or for you to allow us a settlement here. We like to explore and meet new people and trade and experience new cultures." said Harry, hoping he didn't overdo it and scare these people off. He could force himself on this galaxy, even doing so in hiding. But, he really did want to be friends and do things in the open, among the right crowd of course.

"Oh, that's alright. I mean there are thousands and thousands of different sentient species in this galaxy. Many have very interesting an unique abilities too. But, when you combine that with your science and technology. I think it's your technology that intimidates me a bit. I like to think we've accomplished a lot in our hundred thousand years or so, but it looks like you're well beyond that." said Leia.

"But please don't take that the wrong way, that doesn't change anything. I'm very grateful actually for the work you are doing and offering to do to help restore our damaged worlds. I just wonder if there is so much more you could do. But I wouldn't want to ask and seem like we're trying to exploit you." said Leia.

"That is no problem. Remember we offered to Senator Omas the possibility of helping you good people defend from this invasion you are fighting. We wouldn't mind helping with that in exchange for a small piece of territory here in this galaxy so that we can really become part of this galactic community and feel secure ourselves as we live and grow with you." said Harry. Figuring that now that he has shown them a bit more what they are capable of and they are suitably awed, he would drop the dime on what he really wanted and let them come to him with a proposal, when it was good for them. That would be the first and last time he suggested such a thing. These were the right ears to hear it, if it were going to ever lead to anything.

"I will talk to Senator Omas about it. As well as my brother Luke. I now believe he definitely needs to meet you. Even if the Republic doesn't let you help them in the war effort, I would be surprised if Luke didn't accept your help on behalf of the Jedi Order at least." said Leia.

The next day, Harry allowed some of the native Caamas to look over his scanner readings and settings for the exogenesis with him. They weren't going to flatten and recycle all building and infrastructure material because there was much of that they were planning on re-using themselves. But there were certain structures that were damaged that he could actually help them quickly repair, with their input. So, they worked with him to identify locations on the surface where they could give him the input he needed to properly set the machines to re-build or re-pair certain structures. They were able to return certain important things to good order such as large aqueduct systems, sea retaining walls. And they took care of that large meteor crater by filling the entire thing in, densely packed, and covering it with top soil. You wouldn't even know there had been a meteor strike there now.

All in all the Caamas people were extremely happy, as was Leia with the result. And if Leia is happy Han is happy. And if Han is happy, nobody gets shot (jk). So it was a good day for everyone.

The Star Destroyer returned the people to the surface where they could now really start getting their people to come back from their refugee settlements on Kerilt and Susevfi and really re-build their civilization.

The Jedi liaison's transferred to Harry's Knight-Carrier, then the Star Destroyer and its escorts returned to their sector defense duties at Kal'Shebbol. While the Jedi returned with Harry's fleet and the Avenging Angel back to Callos, where the AE would now begin to set up shop. They might be surprised how much has been done already, it had been almost two weeks.

And the Jedi liaison's had another big surprise in store for them. For once Harry's fleet wasn't being led around by slow Republican ships. So, they didn't bother with hyper-space lanes. They entered hyper-space and re-appeared in orbit of Callos three hours later. They couldn't believe it. Harry had more explaining to do.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Timeframe: 2013-2014 (25-26 ABY), concluded.

Jedi Master Horn and Knight Soroc continued to get an eyeful of the AE technology and of the Alterans themselves. Harry allowed them to view a custom designed history and information about the Alteran race and the Avalon Empire, based on a redacted version of what is made available to the public in the AE, excluding certain facts he didn't yet want anyone in this galaxy to know (such as any reference to stargates, worm-holes or using sub-space for travel, drone weapons, ZPMs, other strategic information, the existence of any extra-galactic technologies they didn't already know existed, not even the true age of his people, etc.). The Jedi had a better understanding for Harry's extra-galactic references since they counted forty-three other galaxies in the local group that Harry's public maps indicated his Empire either controlled entirely or had a presence in (but no numbers to indicate number of colonized worlds, populations, or force strengths).

Meanwhile, Harry continued to have his secret military outpost at Triangulo and his new public colony at Callos built up and secured. Along with this he sent orders back to Atlantis to have two ten kilometer diameter cloaked and shielded super-gates constructed that would be assembled and operated adjacent to their two primary Triangulum sub-space beacon and relay stations for mustering ships too and from Triangulum, without relying strictly on ships that had their own worm-hole drives for whatever their transportation needs were, including supplies and trade goods.

They also decided that going forward they would promote Harry's 'cover' from Captain to Admiral. Therefore when it became time to reveal larger groups of capital ships, it would be appear appropriate to all uninitiated ears for Harry to be giving all the orders and receiving all the VIP guests. Therefore, Harry will be referred to as Admiral of the Avalon Empire Fourth Fleet (See A/N's for a breakdown of AE Naval Forces/Fleets).

They had just finished the additional cloaked anchorage around Callos moon and transferred twelve Liberator's [Task Force] TF's 41, 42, and 43 to it under Harry's command; while TF's 44, 45, and 46 remained at Triangulo Anchorage under Hermione's command. When Jedi Master Horn came to inform Harry that the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 had been over-run and taken by the Yuuzhan Vong and forced to retreat.

Harry offered them sanctuary and to build a new Praxeum on Callos. They had plenty of space after all and the AE would be happy to sponsor and protect them. When Master Horn asked how would he protect them, they hadn't seen much military forces from them around.

They had seen up to eighteen Destiny battle-cruisers around but they have no idea what they are really capable of and they looked like average sized cruisers to them. To them, a couple modern ISD1 or ISD2 Star Destroyers in your orbit meant you were protected.

So, Harry said. "Master Horn, swear to me on your honor as a Jedi that what I am about to reveal to you, you will keep secret and only tell other Jedi of rank Master or the head of your order and no one else and require the same oath of them, unless I grant permission."

"Do I have your word?" asked Harry.

"Yes, Emperor Potter. You can trust me. I and the order will keep your secret as long as it does not harm the Republic." answered Master Horn.

"That is good enough." replied Harry.

"Come with me, we'll beam over to one of the battle-cruisers, I want to show you something." said Harry.

They beamed to one of the cruisers (something that while he'd gotten used to it, Master Horn still thought was incredible technology).

"Captain, take us within secure visible range of the anchorage, inside the cloaking field." ordered Harry.

"Yes, sir." the Captain snapped back, glancing a wary eye at the Jedi.

The battle-cruiser entered the perimeter of the field and what came into view floored Master Horn as he witnessed eight twelve-kilometer long behemoth's docked to an enormous space station, that weren't shaped all that differently from an Imperial Star Destroyer but did not have the very tall towers they had. Plus four more of those size ships (Super Star Destroyers?, whatever they were) in various maneuvers around the moon conducting whatever operations they were in the middle of.

One had it's lower hanger bay doors opened and Master Horn was surprised to see some of those Destiny battle-cruisers launch from one of those big ships.

Having finally learned to strengthen his Jedi stoicism every time Harry is about to show him something new he just managed to get out: "Very impressive Emperor Potter. I would say this would do fine. I'm sorry if I appeared to doubt you. If I may, what kind of ships are those?" asked Master Horn (If you want to be reminded of the full Liberator specs., see the A/N of chapter 18, what follows is a summary).

"Those Master Horn, are what we call our Liberator class Carrier-Battleship's. What we consider a dreadnought hull plate. It is twelve kilometers long, five kilometers wide. Without giving away any highly classified information I will tell you a little about them because once you get to see one in action much of this will be revealed anyway. It has very powerful armor, shields, and cloak, transports a division of marines, one thousand four hundred forty fighters, three hundred sixty bombers, and three hundred forty assault shuttles." said Harry.

"The cannon emplacements you see are three hundred heavy plasma beams, which I believe are roughly the equivalent type of weapon as your heavy turbo laser batteries, but I don't know how they match up fire-power wise against each other yet. She has seven hundred and twenty missile launch tubes and we carry a wide variety of advanced missile types. As you can see, she is also a mother-ship, ferrying six of the Destiny class battle-cruisers or other equivalent sized ships. When it's not in combat it can also act as a space station and dock for up to twenty-four Destiny class or equivalent size ships and can perform shipyard maintenance, re-supply, medical, and construction activities." said Harry.

"In addition to that she carries two highly classified weapon systems and a power source that I apologize but we won't be providing any details on most likely ever, although if these Yuuzhan Vong get too close to Callos you might see them demonstrated." said Harry.

"That is incredible. The only warship I've heard of bigger than that is the Executor class Super Star Destroyer (SSD) and there were few of those made, but the type also had a wide range of sizes. I think most SSD's were actually right around the size of the Liberator though. In comparison the SSD had fifteen times the number of cannons you have on that and transported a lot more ground forces, but had a tenth of your number of fighters. It seems they are built for slightly different mission profiles, it would be an interesting match-up. But anyway, when people see this, SSD is what they are going to immediately compare it to." said Master Horn.

"Interesting. I will have to take a look at those some time." replied Harry.

"It's true that our Liberator's are built for space superiority. It's mission isn't landing mass amounts of ground forces because it's job is frankly defense and liberating conquered worlds. It is also capable of creating, building, and constructing friendly colonies and outposts. Not made for conquering per se. If a Liberator has achieved air and space superiority over an enemy planet and has millions of enemy ground forces still to defeat it has other ways of achieving that using other modalities of our matter targeting and transportation technology. We don't like to get our hands dirty if we can help it, and we usually can." said Harry.

"That is certainly a ...unique approach." said Master Horn, trying to form a mental image of how that would go. Continuing his comparison and assessment of what he witnessed:

"The Republic's mainstay for Capital ships is the Imperial Star Destroyer I and II class, which is only one point six kilometers in comparison. The Sabre-class you saw us in before is one of the smallest of the Destroyer classes. The ISD2 has about a third or more of the number of cannons that your Liberator has and not all of those are of the heavy type, and only a twentieth of it's number of fighters. The Mon Calamari Star Cruisers are very nice too." said Master Horn.

"If one were to assume that your weapons and shields and our weapons and shields were pretty much an even match for ours. Which by the way from all you've shown me so far, I doubt we'd even come close. But for simple math we could say that one of your Liberator's without counting it's six battle-cruiser escorts would be matched by maybe four to six ISD2's, let's say five. You have twelve Liberator's here so not including what are likely many other advantages in your tech you have the rough equivalent fleet of say at least sixty ISD2's. I can pretty much assure you that unless Master Skywalker has some political problems with it, I think he would feel quite safe in putting the new Jedi Praxeum under your protection. Thank you Emperor." concluded Master Horn.

...

As expected, Master Skywalker did indeed take the AE up on their offer of sanctuary and a new home for their Praxeum. Thanks to this, Harry finally had a chance to meet with the Jedi Master in person. Before they could get into any of the general items about the Jedi that Harry wanted to eventually talk about they had to spend the first few weeks after the Jedi Fleet arrived with all their people focusing on just designing, building, outfitting the new Praxeum, getting people healed up, taking care of all their people and getting them re-supplied and so forth. It was mostly construction and logistics for the first few weeks. Harry was interested in their Bacta fluid which was capable of rapid tissue regeneration and prevented scar tissue.

Meanwhile, many of the Jedi had to turn around and head back out into the theater of combat. The war wasn't waiting for them to get their new school and sanctuary for their young set up. And their headquarters was still on Coruscant, so many were traveling back and forth between there too. The Jedi were running in many directions at once and Harry just decided to put off his research interests to focus on helping them with their new Praxeum. The New Republic sent Harry an official letter of thanks from Chief of State Fey'lya for their aid and protection of the Jedi.

By Harry's reckoning it looked like they had about one hundred full Jedi Knights, over a dozen Masters, most who were also training young padawans. And a Junior Jedi Academy to house, nurture, and train the young aspirants; including many of the children of the adult Jedi. Master Skywalker had informed him that they had lost about a quarter of their number already due to the war, and he was grateful to the Emperor's help, especially to protect the children who would be the future of the order.

Finally about a month into the Jedi's move to Callos Praxeum, Harry caught Master Skywalker at a relaxed moment. In fact, it was Master Skywalker who initiated the conversation.

"By the way, please call me Luke from now on in private conversation." said Luke.

"Certainly, and please it is just Harry in those times as well." said Harry.

"First allow me again to thank you for all you have done and are doing. I know from the things Leia has told me as well as Master Horn, that you have been very helpful and compassionate to our cause since arriving here." said Luke.

"You're welcome." replied Harry.

"I hesitate to ask for more, but after hearing and seeing the abilities and the skills of your own Imperial Knights, I wondered if you might wish to cross-train with us? Have some of your Knights train with our Knights and vice-versa. Perhaps it would lead to more cross-fertilization of our cultures and we could help each other in some way." said Luke.

"Thank you. In the long term I think that idea has merit. But, there is a concern of mine that I am still trying to study. One that I haven't had the time or opportunity to bring up with you before." said Harry.

"Let's retire to someplace private so that we can discuss it then." suggested Luke.

They went off to a private conference room at the new Praxeum where Harry had been meeting with him.

"What troubles you?" asked Luke.

"Well, I think you must have heard already some of my questions on this that I posed separately to Master Horn and Leia." said Harry.

"I know that it appears in effect that our two orders have some common abilities, and certainly on a tactical level we could train together and learn to fight as effective teams. No concern there. But, I am concerned about these midichlorians. You see, none of our race or any of the other races I know in our home galaxy or the others we are involved in, have these. It appears to be localized to just this galaxy. At least from what I can tell so far." said Harry.

"Really? How strange. Please go on, now I'm intrigued." replied Luke.

"I understand that the way the force works through you is that all life forms in your galaxy possess some number of these microscopic organisms in their cells. And that it's simply those with high enough concentrations of them that can sense and use the force." said Harry.

"But, I'd like to know why. And why only for life in this galaxy? And is it possibly dangerous to expose my people to long-term high concentrations of it? Or any of the other species from my Empire that travel with us? I know that texts describe this organism as symbiotic, but another side of that could be considered parasitic, meaning it must be getting something from the host too or why else would it be there? And maybe whatever that relationship is, it is fine for people who were born in this galaxy, because possibly you all have a favorable genetic mutation that allows that to be safe for you. But might that be different for those of us who don't or who weren't born here." said Harry.

"I see. I guess I can understand your concern. It's not something that we've given any thought to before. As you say, it's as common to our life as water and oxygen so we don't question it. But from an outsiders perspective I can see why there could be a concern. And I do find it interesting from your observations of other species including other humans such as yourselves from all those other galaxies you are involved in that you have not found this anywhere else. I think you would be correct in guessing that were the situation reversed we would've assumed it did exist everywhere else too and question why it doesn't." said Luke.

"In fact our teachings say so. But of course our elders would have known no better, as the inhabitants of our galaxy have always been trapped here for as long as we can remember. Frankly, it is true that we accept many things as universal that we can only know is true for our own galaxy. You know it's interesting that you brought this up. Because we made a similar observation of the Yuuzhan Vong when they started invading us. We cannot sense them in the force. They have no force-presence. And the thing they have in common is that they too originated outside of our galaxy." said Luke.

"Maybe you can only sense others in the force because everyone else in this galaxy has some amount of midichlorians in their cells? Even if its not enough for them to sense and wield it. Perhaps that is why you have that connection to them? Maybe it's the presence of the lower levels of midichlorians in the non-Jedi that allow you to have such an influence over them with your abilities, because your potential and therefore power exceeds theirs?" said Harry.

"It is an interesting question and an interesting observation. A couple thoughts. Please don't mention this concern to any of the other Jedi right now. With all that we are going through with this war, just after having reached a stable state re-building the entire order from scratch since the last war. I don't think we can handle any more reason to doubt ourselves." said Luke.

"Of course. That is why I waited to speak to you in person about it first." said Harry.

"Good. Thank you. If you would, and I think I can tell you are interested. Would you mind then joining us in a joint study of this question? I would brief just two more Jedi to this investigation, our Chief Healer, Master Cilghal, who knows our physiology and the physiology around the force better than anyone; and my wife Mara Jade. Hopefully we can prove it is safe and answer the questions and you could feel safer around it." said Luke.

"I think that is a good idea. My Chief Geneticist is working on some very big projects back home, but I will ask her to assign one of her top people to come join us on Callos and we can open up a classified investigation into this. I am sorry for troubling you with this. It may be no concern at all. But, like you said, it's just our outsiders perspective. When I look at what you are doing, it seems fine for you. I don't mean to imply there is anything at all wrong with any of you, I just want to make sure there isn't something that's different about us that makes it unsafe for us." said Harry, hoping that Luke understood he wasn't trying to insult their abilities or even their race.

"I understand completely. And like you, I'd like to know the answer to the questions too. It never hurts to learn more." said Luke.

"While we're on this enlightening topic. Could you explain more about where your people get your abilities from?" asked Luke.

Then Harry answered explaining the Alteran innate abilities with zpe and how they use it, and how in more primitive cultures in their galaxy some consider it magic because they don't understand the science of it.

"Can you sense me in the force?" asked Harry.

"Ah, I knew we'd get to that question. The answer is No, and Yes. I sense no force-presence from you. However, you present a noticeable presence of power that is unique from other beings. So, because I can sense that through the force, I can tell when one of your race is near. If I didn't know who and what you were, the sensation would seem strange to me, but since I have a reference for it, I just identify the presence as Alteran." answered Luke.

"Leia and Master Horn as well as Knight Soroc, have all shared with me their observations of it. I understand that you can do a wider variety of things with your zpe ability than we can with the force. Such as actually summoning objects from personal pocket dimensions, conjuring items by transmuting the energy to matter, transporting yourself the same way which you call teleporting, turning completely invisible, mentally forming neural connections with your technology, and putting up invisible shields that can protect from energy and projectile fire, and much more. I'm inclined to think it is magic myself. I think you all would make terrific allies and partners with us, if you ever wish to." said Luke.

"Perhaps in the long run that would work out. I hope so. You'll have to understand though that we don't place any reverence or taboos to it. Other than obeying the same laws as anyone else does for how one treats other people and their property and enforcing appropriate behavior that way; we don't require our people to avoid using our abilities. We use them all the time in every day life. You might not have noticed because you've only seen a few of us and mostly our Knights. But, everyone in my race have these same abilities. The only difference is that a certain subset train to be Imperial Knights, serving me personally for security, for special paramilitary operations and special law enforcement duties." explained Harry.

"Well, when the time comes we'll see how we can work around that. We have trained and worked with soldiers and security forces of many species. We can be friends and allies without worshiping at each others temples for lack of a better phrase." said Luke.

Harry just nodded along in agreement.

"Oh, by the way I've been meaning to mention this but I wanted to make sure we got along as friends first because I don't want this to put you off. You might find among many in this galaxy, that just your title Emperor might bring up bad connotations." said Luke.

"You see, with our recent history, many people get jumpy as soon as they see someone calling themselves Emperor and wielding mighty fleets of dreadnoughts. Our galaxy's own Imperial Remnant still exists for instance, with someone there always aspiring to call themselves Emperor and apparently just itching to re-conquer the galaxy again if they only could; and as a consequence they are not beloved at all. Just the name Imperial Knights will likely scare some people." said Luke.

Harry had read versions of this story before but he listened in rapt attention to one who was there and helped lead and fight in the rebellion, to get his personal take on it.

"The original Emperor of the modern age was a Dark Lord of the Sith who usurped power and was brutal and destroyed entire planets, my sister's home-world included. I'm certain it won't be a problem for you among open-minded and well educated people. But many of the ordinary folk may not see the distinction, at least right away. I just wanted to forewarn you that you could have a public relations problem in some quarters from time to time. It's not my place to tell you how to handle it, it's just something I wanted to point out to you so that you wouldn't be blind sided by it. I could get you some holo-recordings of the last hundred years or so of history and you would probably see what I mean." said Luke.

"I would appreciate that. Thanks. I actually believe in democratic processes too. When I formed my government I had to make some choices. Especially in the beginning, taking firm control as only an Emperor could do was the only way to maintain peace and order in my home galaxy among many disparate worlds who had only known warlords for millennia. Since then we've actually had other advanced worlds ask to join us for our protection. Perhaps I will tell you more about it sometime, but it started when I too had to lead a movement to liberate hundreds of enslaved worlds. So, hopefully you will understand that I came to this role out of necessity. We generally operate as a benevolent hegemony though." said Harry.

...

The rest of the year continued with the AE and the Jedi continuing to strengthen themselves at Callos and Triangulo, while Harry and Hermione took some more time to get back home to spend time with the kids and get caught up on other Empire business.

Ayiana assigned Novum Parvati Thomas nee Patil to travel to Callos to be Master Cilghal's partner in their new classified Force Genetics Research Project. That being the case, Harry likewise transferred her husband, Admiral Dean Thomas, to 'officially' take command of the Fourth Fleet in Triangulum. He promised him it wasn't a demotion from being in command of the entire sector back in Avalon. He briefed him on the war he thought they were going to be getting into soon and the charge they've already taken on to protect the Jedi. Harry gave him instructions to begin war-planning scenarios and to become an expert on their intelligence of the force strengths, weaknesses, and tactics of the New Republic and Yuuzhan Vong in preparation for their own entry into the war at some point.

The AE built a nice shared medical facility with a research annex adjacent to the Praxeum, for their joint research. The added benefit was that the Jedi could also now take direct advantage of some of the more advanced medical treatment of the AE; and the AE would start to learn how the Jedi do it, including the use of Bacta that Harry was curious about.

...

Back at home, the Phoenix Dwarf colony was up and running and had made good friends and trading partners with the Kobolian Colonials at Canceron. As it turned out. Even though some of those other human worlds the Colonials passed on their way outbound in their search for Earth were not officially part of their government.

With the help of the AE and their promise of help for all parties, Canceron was gaining more help and allies to their cause of rebuilding. Including some which had at one time gotten their starts as expatriates of the Colonies, decided to send a fair many of their people back to help repopulate Canceron, helping it to grow again with people, culture, labor, and trade goods. This had the added affect of already growing a new colonial reach for Canceron.

This included humans who were formerly of Scorpia on the planet Attila and the human survivors of their conflict with the Cylons on Carillon which had been a resort planet eager to finally get away from the indigenous Ovions that had betrayed them. They were working with the Aeries prison planet Proteus to see if there were any people there that could be rehabilitated into society and thereby Canceron renewed support for Proteus and took responsibility for the prisoners care which had been lost to the war. The Sectar colony of former Colonial Pioneers that call themselves Serenity began slowly working with them. With AE assistance Canceron established a friendly relationship and are on the verge of an alliance with the Western Coalition of Terra, and with their help freed the small Terran colony of Paradeen who was now under Canceron protection.

Canceron was on a collision course for a war of Liberation with the Eastern Alliance, via their new friends in the Western Coalition. But, at this point even though their numbers were small, Canceron still had the technological and military edge. Their aim was to unite as much of the surviving and related human civilizations in the galaxy, and re-build Canceron and a re-established Twelve Colonies as a galactic benevolent hegemony.

...

While Harry was on a bit of break from Triangulum he attended to another of his projects. While Hermione went to check on her old school and spend some time with her parents and the kids, Harry took a brief foray into the SagDIG galaxy which had been discovered to have twenty-seven carbon stars; as well as a rich set of intermediate-age stars and planets that possessed many of the other exotic materials their race depended on, good for colonies and building material stockpiles. Three of these twenty-seven stars were found to produce harvestable amounts of the deubarium element.

Since their supply-chain was working quite well with the resources they had and still had in reserve. Harry decided to dispatch an unmanned Voyager with another HFR duplicate of himself, set up very much like the one he originally dispatched to Sanctuary which was still there caretaking that facility. This one would have a bit of broader scope. First would be to build a refining complex for all three carbon stars, with satellite protection grids and everything just like the first one in the Draco Dwarf. But, in addition to that HFR-Harry-2 would build a colony staffed by ordinary HFR designed to stockpile for the Empire all those finished materials, as well as mine and refine finished materials of all their other key resources, such as trinium, naquadah, and neutronium.

Beside simply not wanting to allow those resources to go to waste and not be exploited, or fall into someone else's hands. He was now wondering if he would be able to stockpile enough deubarium and other exotic materials to begin a commodity trade with them. Longer down the road of course. So, he just initiated this development program to begin the process and returned home. He also wanted to spend more time with his kids.

...

Adam informed Harry that Ayiana requested a meeting to go over some of the results of her research into Novum zpe disorders. Harry followed up immediately.

"Harry thank you for coming to see me. I understand things have been rather exciting for you in the Triangulum galaxy?" said Ayiana.

"You could say that. Would you believe that in the hundred thousand or so years of their isolation their number of species and total population had grown to about ten quadrillion beings?" said Harry.

"It's the biggest discovery not related to pure science that I think our people have made in a very long time. Of course, like many things I have found that my ancestors, your descendants, have meddled there too, so I'm trying to establish a small foothold there and see if I can manage some of the time bombs they left laying around." said Harry.

"Anyway, what have you got for me? Something exciting?" asked Harry.

"Yes. I think so. It certainly has your friend Remus Lupin all excited. I have completely isolated the genes responsible for the werewolf transformation and can suppress it entirely with one vaccination that will rids them of the disease altogether. As for their reproducing, I was able to go so far as to create a version of the same treatment all your Novum take prior to procreation that will remove that from them, making it safe for them to reproduce and not pass it on. So, as long as they meet all the other requirements for that, they will be fine." said Ayiana.

"That's great. Has it been tested yet?" asked Harry.

"Yes. Only on Remus so far and he has completely shown remission from the disease. Now we have to monitor him and others who wish to participate in testing to see if it presents as a permanent cure." said Ayiana.

"That's great. I will go ahead and let Ambassador Creevey know that she can contact her counterparts at the ICW to see if and how they would like to participate in this on behalf of the wizarding world." said Harry.

"Great job Ayiana. Did you say you have something for the vampires too?" said Harry.

"Thanks. I do, but it's not much since it really just does the same thing as killing them in any other way does. I believe it would be possible to create a preventive vaccine that if given to the entire population might very well prevent them from spreading the virus. But, that's about it." said Ayiana.

"From what Remus Lupin and Sirius Black have told me they don't believe there is any chance the wizarding world would institute a global vaccination policy like that, so I put that research on hold." said Ayiana.

"That's probably true. I'll have Ambassador Creevey mention it anyway just in case. Then they can't say we never told them." said Harry.

"Any news on the overall DNA tampering front with our sub-genus and/or the zpe mutated creatures?" asked Harry.

"Yes. But it is inconclusive. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to prove anything for certain. Especially without any pure samples of the sub-genus from before the suspected tampering." said Ayiana.

"But, yes. It appears the hypothesis is correct that there was some additional DNA added to your group's genome in that distant past, which contributed to the mutations that created lycanthropy and vampirism syndromes. As for the other sapient creatures and non-sapient animals, we're still working on that. There are similar markers. But, we've only begun sampling the Ark for that research." said Ayiana.

"Did Sirius and Remus have any luck with the Goblins?" asked Harry.

"They spoke to them about it. They were not convinced that they should allow us to poke around in their genetics, nor were they keen on helping us with the other zpe capable sapients. It seems their mutual distrust for wizards is going to transfer directly to us whether or not we call ourselves wizards." said Ayiana.

"That is too bad. Well, focus on the Ark for now. Then and I will see if I can personally make time in the future through a dose of subterfuge and a measure of intrepidity to influence some opportunities to present themselves." said Harry.

A/N:

-AE Fleet Details (if you care)

As you know, Harry as Emperor, or while playing his cover as an 'Admiral' whatever, can move his flag of 'command' to any ship he wants to, or not, it's entirely up to him. He is in charge no matter where he is standing, let us not forget that.

The current status of AE Capital Ship Fleets (which consist of sub-commands of Task Forces, Task Groups, and Task Units). The high-level numbers are. As of 2014-ABY26, the AE has built 500 Liberator's (480 are in service in Fleets, 20 are in reserve or in duty rotation at any given time). The AE has built (over-built) but none the less has 44,500 Destiny Mk II battle-cruisers.

Note that only 2,880 Destiny's are daughter ships to the Liberator's; the rest form the bulk of standard protected planet defense and patrol assignments reporting to the military governors of each sector (and to reiterate-do not have their own worm-hole drives, therefore they will either use a super-gate or hitch a ride on another ships worm-hole either docked with a Liberator or through the fleet worm-hole that the Leviathan can open).

Alright, so there are 20 fleets outside of the standard planetary defense and patrol task units of the Destiny's that are not assigned to fleets but to planetary sector defense (if you will recall that is currently 3 per task unit-it's a little thinner than that actually because Harry drew down from his over-built supply of Destiny's to fill his Liberator's belly's, he did not build even more just to load them up-therefore he took some from planets who really didn't need as many as they had originally allocated).

Anyway, there are 20 fleets of 24 Liberator Carrier-Battleship dreadnoughts each, with their collective 144 Destiny Mk II's. Organized with 6 Task Forces in each fleet consisting of 4 Liberator's each. Each Task Force consists of 2 Task Groups of 2 Liberator's each. Each [Fleet] Task Unit is 1 Liberator and it's retinue.

These are called and numbered: Avalon Empire First Fleet, Second Fleet, on up to Twentieth Fleet, each with their respective sub-commands as Task Force 10, 11, 12; or for the Second Fleet Task force 20, 21, 22, and so forth. Task Groups as 10.1, 10.2; and Task Units as 10.1.1, 10.1.2, and so forth. Beyond that each individual ship is known as a Task Element, such as , , etc.

I am not going to come up with names for all the ships in the AE Navy. Just like George Lucas didn't for every one of the alleged 25,000 Star Destroyers in Star Wars. And I'm not writing a movie where I want certain ships to become stars in their own right, beloved by fans, so that I can sell merchandise. So, unlike him, I don't see the point of naming many of them at all (and Harry will move from one to the other so often that I'm not going to name just the one's he boards either).

Therefore, for what little it is worth (and not assigning all of them): the AE First Fleet is assigned to Javabli and Atlantis, Capitol Defense. The AE Second Fleet is assigned to Chandilar for Furling Sector Capitol Defense. The AE Third Fleet is assigned to M'Kraan along with 1,000 additional Destiny Mk II's assigned as an additional Nexus Defense Rapid Response Force. The AE Fourth Fleet is the Expeditionary Fleet that Harry is currently leading in Triangulum from his personal flagship Leviathan. The Fifth through Twentieth Fleets are currently out doing their jobs among the other 43 galaxies they control or are active in, with most Fleets operating out of the AE's most populated galaxies and sectors, naturally.

Another interesting note, none of the Knight-Carriers are under Fleet control, they are independent reporting directly to the Emperor, and therefore the 3 that are currently detached to the Leviathan are also not officially part 'of the fleet.' So far they've only built 10 of them and only have enough trained Knights to staff 6 of them. 3 of which are in Triangulum with Harry and the 4th Fleet (as a reminder).

I hope that explained it.

I haven't decided on the ships colors yet. (Nor will I ever, so just stop there... you know who you are).


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Timeframe: 2014-2015 (27 ABY)

Early in the new year Harry received an urgent message from Admiral Thomas at Callos, relaying important news on the status of the New Republic's war with the Yuuzhan Vong. Along with it was a personal request from Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

"The New Republic capitol planet of Coruscant fell to the Yuuzhan Vong. Chief of State Fey'lya was killed in its defense, and the last remaining Executor II class Super Star Destroyer Lusankya was sacrificed in a successful strike against one of the Yuuzhan Vong's world ships. The Senate building, the Imperial palace, and the Jedi headquarters were all destroyed. The New Republic government was moving to Mon Calamari and Master Skywalker requested your attendance at an important meeting there with the recently elected new Chief of State, Cal Omas to discuss an offer of alliance with us."

...

Harry showed the message to Hermione and they agreed they would ally themselves with the New Republic and drive off the Yuuzhan Vong. Hermione begrudgingly agreed to stay behind in Avalon because the kids were missing too much with both of them gone most of the time. And she could make sure they didn't lose influence in the affairs of their own Empire while Harry focused on Triangulum.

Harry departed to return to Triangulo and from there took a cloaked Task Force 46 to Callos to pick up Master Horn, and from there met the New Republic government leaders at Mon Calamari. During the preliminary meet and greets Harry also learned that Leia and Han's youngest child, Anakin Solo died at Myrkyr in a successful strike against another of the Yuuzhan Vong world ships, and her second oldest Jacen Solo has been captured. She was rightfully inconsolable and Han was pounding his fist on every desk wondering what they were going to do about it and how they would free Jacen. They had just gotten their daughter Jaina out of the clutches of the Hapes who were chasing her around after her escape from Myrkyr. One faction wanted to make her their new queen while another faction wanted to assassinate her because the other faction wanted to make her their new queen.

...

With the agreement of Emperor Potter and the backing of Admiral Ackbar, Master Skywalker, former Chief Solo, Supreme Commander Sien Sovv, and at the suggestion and support of the Greater Javin Regional Governor, new Chief of State Cal Omas pushed through the Senate: a new Mutual Defense Alliance and Free Trade Treaty between the New Republic and the Avalon Empire, ceding Allodial title in return for the AE's direct intervention in the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, a relatively small region of space on the outer rim.

This new region, dubbed the "Avalon Empire Protectorate" and also referred to within the AE itself as the "Triangulo Sector," consisted of two of the three rimward sectors (Anoat and Yarith) of the Greater Javin Region and the adjacent trailing Wazta Sector. Then from those sectors' galactic west (Koda Station) and east (Bavva) borders respectively, a radial out to the edge of the galaxy. The bulk of many of the worlds there had gotten to know the AE by their works and reputation, and wanted AE protection from the world eating Yuuzhan Vong before their eye turned on them. The treaty also permitted the Avalon Empire to explore and claim any additional un-claimed territory trailing from their sector in the outer rim, wild space, and unknown regions. (See A/N for a more detailed description of the new borders if that interests you).

With that treaty, Harry got the territorial foothold in Triangulum that he wanted and nearly everyone from the leadership to the bulk of the populations there were happy with the arrangement. It was thereafter their responsibility to provide for the sector defense and security of that territory, as well as maintain the peaceful and lawful use of the pre-existing hyper-lanes and trade corridors in cooperation with the New Republic and existing inter-stellar trade agreements.

Compared to much of the rest of the galaxy which boasted of millions of settled planets and ten quadrillion beings, the new protectorate consisted of a modest seventeen hundred known star systems or planets (not all inhabited, but exploited for resources nevertheless). The total population of the region only consisted of twelve billion souls and over twenty native species and twice as many immigrant species, including the human species which quickly came to dominate the region when they began colonizing it.

Five billion of which were on the Anoat sector Capitol world of Gerrenthum at the intersection of the Corellian Trade Spine, the Lutrillian Cross, and the Nothoiin Corridor, another two billion on the customs world Kirtarkin on the border between the outer and middle rim directly intersecting the Correlian Trade Spine, and another one billion on the very successful mining world of Ione (gems and ores); the next largest was Lutrillia (eight hundred million), the home world of the Lutrillians. Most other planets, even well known ones such as Bespin which hosts Cloud City (six million), and Anoat (one hundred million) only had populations numbering in the tens or hundreds of millions.

There was still a great deal for the AE to explore and discover within their new territory as many previous explorers would rarely stray far from known or newly discovered hyper-lanes.

...

Harry re-assigned Task Force 46 at Mon Calamari to assist with the new Capitol's defense should the Yuuzhan Vong strike there next. Then he summoned Task Force 45 from Triangulo to pick him up and select members of the New Republic military and Jedi leadership who were going to travel back with him to Callos to plan a widespread defense and counter-offensive plan in cooperation with AE forces. Enroute to Callos, Harry comm'd Hermione, the AE Capitol, Fleet HQ in Eskal, and Admiral Longbottom at Chandilar. He informed them of their new alliance, introduced them via hologram to the New Republic leaders who were accompanying him which included Head of Strategy Admiral Ackbar, Intelligence Director Dif Scaur, Master Skywalker, and General Solo who decided to come out of retirement for this one. Supreme Commander Sien Sovv, former Chief Leia Organa Solo along with her daughter and Jedi Knight Jaina Solo (whom she wasn't letting out of her sight at the moment), and others remained back at Mon Calamari to continue to re-group the government and prosecute the current war plan while the others went off to strategize a new plan with their new ally.

Harry ordered Admiral Longbottom to immediately re-assign and deploy the first three full fleets he could muster to Callos at Anchorage Tango Bravo (the clear code for their hidden anchorage at Callos) within twenty four hours under the command of Admiral Thomas. Then to begin a sector defense draw-down and re-assignment of another nine thousand Destiny Mk II class battle-cruisers to Anchorage Tango Alpha (the hidden anchorage at Triangulo), which would be under his direct command in lieu of his appointing a new Triangulo Sector Military Governor. As they arrived he and some help from the New Republic liaison's would see to distributing them throughout their new Triangulo Sector for planetary defense and reinforcements. In private, Harry ordered Admiral Longbottom to deploy the super-gates he had them ready previously to facilitate that rapid build up of reinforcements.

Then Harry sat down with Admiral Ackbar, Director Dif Scaur, General Solo, and Master Skywalker to work out a plan to best assist in the ongoing defense erstwhile preparing a counter-offensive with the re-grouping New Republic forces.

First, Director Scaur stated his belief that they didn't think the Yuuzhan Vong were aware of the Avalon Empire's presence in the galaxy yet. But with the news of their alliance and the ceding of a region of their territories in the outer rim to the new Avalon Empire Protectorate, they would be soon.

Therefore, following suggestions by Admiral Ackbar, Harry immediately re-deployed his fleet to begin providing defense at the major ingress points of his new territory. He deployed Task Force 41 to the regions' customs world Kirtarkin on the coreward side of the Correlian Trade Spine to watch for ingress from the galactic north. He deployed Task Force 42 to patrol from Shuldene to Ryoone and Vassek on the coreward trailing side to watch for ingress from the galactic west by northwest. While he and his Allied Commanders remained at Callos which not only served as their HQ with Task Forces 43 and 45 home ported with them at Tango Bravo, but also protected other Allied space from incursions from the galactic north by northeast into the remaining southern outer rim territories from the Sullust sector on down by being situated in a strategic location to watch both the Rimma Trade Route and the Hydian Way. (TF 44 remained at Mon Calamari and TF 46 remained at Tango Alpha with the Leviathan).

Now the genius and motivations of Governor Monjai, Kal'Shebbol, in the Kathol sector was recognized. Because giving Callos to the Avalon Empire initially placed them directly between the advancing Yuuzhan Vong and her sector as well as others.

That was all they could do immediately until the three additional fleets arrived the next day. They decided they would begin work on planning several new initiatives simultaneously, corresponding with the orders Harry just gave the AE Capitol for reinforcements.

The Allied Forces would create a new joint hidden anchorage point called Tango Charlie deep within the new AE Protectorate in orbit of Tokmia in the Anoat sector in the middle of the Ivax Nebula for mustering all the retreating, regrouping, and in need of repair or re-supply Republican ships. The AE would provide a space station with shields and cloaking to secure it, which would also use the AE advanced molecular construction technology to rapidly effect repairs and re-supply. Harry immediately dispatched a squadron of Destiny to begin building that facility. All of the primary anchorages and the planets and moons they orbited from then on would have the AE standard self-healing satellite defense network deployed. Harry briefed the Allied commanders on the capability of those and secretly ordered Leviathan to start locally mass-producing those satellites.

The Allied Forces would formally phase in transition of planetary defense and security from New Republic forces within the new Avalon Empire Protectorate when the Destiny reinforcements began to arrive. Thus freeing up all those additional fresh New Republic forces to muster at Tango Charlie further contributing to the build-up of the new counter-offensive as well as a portion being sent to reinforce the current war plan. As Destiny task elements began taking up that duty planet by planet, they would also install a new self-healing satellite defense grid to them. That effort would be prioritized for existing sector capitol worlds, then by population and strategic value until they get it done. They would transition air and space defense to the AE in less than a year but only make a dent in transitioning full security and governing on the surface of all the planets during that time. That would likely take several years to complete, and wasn't the priority at the moment.

The Allied Forces would create coded links between their respective command, control, communications, and intelligence C3I systems so that they could share intelligence and coordinate all military forces in real-time. And they would exchange Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) codes identifying them as friendly.

The AE would assemble a rapid response expeditionary force led by Admiral Thomas to be accompanied by Admiral Ackbar as Allied Forces Liaison to stand ready to assist the ongoing defense against new Yuuzhan Vong incursions anywhere else in the galaxy if called upon by Supreme Commander Sien Sovv, while they prepare the bulk of the forces for their counter-offensive.

The colony and military outpost on Triangulo (Tango Alpha) would continue to remain top secret from even their New Republic allies, to serve as rear-guard and extra-galactic gateway for the AE only, providing re-supply, advanced medical, long-term convalescence, and repairs or new construction that couldn't be handled in the field that needed the facilities or the secrecy of the Leviathan. The New Republic was aware that the AE had an internal-only secret anchorage somewhere near the very edge of the galactic disc, but they didn't know where it was. It was Harry's intention for that location to permanently remain their internal secret. Serving as his Empire's true Capitol in the galaxy, whilst he eventually would set up a more public facing Capitol for their territory on Gerrenthum, where everyone already in the galaxy would expect it to be.

Harry also used his new privileged access to New Republic databases to download his own copy of the official New Republic governments version of Galactic History. Additionally, to facilitate the AE's ability to repair and even rebuild NR ships, the AE received limited classified access to their Fleet ship standard specifications, including weapons, shields, propulsion, power generation, and so forth. Some of the most top secret information was excluded of course, the same as when Harry shared AE information with them. No one is put off by that, it is normal for allies to keep their biggest secrets close to their chest.

The Allies asked, but Harry cited the galaxy's overall and long history of political turbulence, for why he would not share his Empire's knowledge of how to travel to and from their galaxy. He bluntly but politely told them that the rest of the universe wasn't ready for the Sith and other warlords that are loose or hiding in this galaxy to go looking for greener fields to conquer. He suggested he might change his mind someday if the Triangulum galaxy became more peaceful and harbored fewer extremist elements. He continued to have even their internal stargate travel kept secret from them, going so far as to secure those spaces of their ships so that only AE personnel could enter those areas. And this would mean sadly that for the foreseeable future none of his planetary settlements in this galaxy would get their own stargate until he felt it was safe to do so.

The Allies never really questioned how they got around so fast when they saw how fast they could travel in hyper-space without the limitations of hyper-lanes. So, they did ask if they could share in the AE's very advanced hyper-space navigation technology. For that he said, possibly someday after the war and the galaxy settled down a bit. He would still want to do something to ensure the maniacs in the galaxy didn't get a hold of his race's advantages. That was the overall driver of why he didn't directly share their technology, even with other highly advanced races. It's not that they would mean to but those designs could be stolen from them or taken from them by the next warlord to come along.

...

As scheduled, the three new fleets (the Seventh Fleet, Twelfth Fleet, and Nineteenth Fleet) arrived at Triangulo the next day and Harry had the Nineteenth stay at Tango Alpha in reserve where the Leviathan was meant to stay, continuing its role as their official internal Capitol in this galaxy. While he had the Seventh Fleet, Twelfth Fleet, and Task Force 46 rendezvous with him at Tango Bravo.

Harry assigned the Seventh Fleet to Admiral Thomas and Admiral Ackbar to complete the construction of Tango Charlie at Tokmia and to begin mustering and cross-training the allied forces for the counter-offensive. They also had his leave to use portions of the fleet as their expeditionary force to assist in any other rapid response requests they might receive from Allied Supreme Commander Sien Sovv. The Twelfth Fleet would remain at Tango Bravo until the offensive and then that fleet as well as the Nineteenth Fleet would join the offensive.

By the first week into the preparations all three major anchorages had at least one full AE fleet, in some cases a bit more as forces were moved around and shared for logistical purposes. And Harry recalled the squadron of Destiny from Task Force 45 that he originally sent to get the job started at Tokmia back to Tango Bravo, since they were no longer needed there. With the additional Liberator's construction capacity brought to bare, Tango Charlie was almost fully operational.

Admiral Longbottom started having one hundred Destiny per day arrive at Tango Alpha through the super-gate, each with enough supplies to manufacture a full planetary satellite defense grid and additional HFR's on site. On their own using hyper-space, it took them a full day to make the journey from their Avalon mustering station to the Triangulo void beacon, with the final step through the paired super-gates.

After the fifth day of reinforcements and some reserve built-up at Tango Alpha, Harry began having them rendezvous at Tango Bravo in squadrons of five each, to pick up their assigned Allied Forces liaison officers. This effort was organized and led by General Solo who also made initial contact with each planetary security force to make the arrangements. Then in groups of five had them delegated to designated planets to begin the installation of their respective satellite defense grids and transition of defense and security duties in space and in an initial limited fashion on the surface. In this way they would kick-off the phasing in of the transition at about twenty planets per day.

After a while of that initiative making some progress the Tango Charlie anchorage started mustering a great deal more of the fresh Republican sector defense forces and supplies that were being re-allocated to the offensive. The New Republic was rebuilding a large armada of their own. While continuing to send enough reinforcements out in the field to assist Supreme Commander Sien Sovv in his efforts to prosecute the rear-guard actions and make a believable showing of making a defensive play on current incursions without the Yuuzhan Vong suspecting the secret build-up of a counter-offensive.

Supreme Commander Sien Sovv asked Admiral Ackbar not to send along any Avalon Empire forces yet because he wanted to make sure they maintained that element of surprise as long as they could. Right now Intelligence had a read on where the Yuuzhan Vong were going next and force strengths they were using. They did not want the entire campaign to flip on it's head by forcing the Vong to react to a new asymmetrical response from their allies, before they are ready to go on the offensive. They wanted that engagement to be on the Allies terms for once. If all went to plan, they would cripple the Vong in one master play.

When Admiral Ackbar got to see live fire exercises of the AE Liberator's, Destiny's, Fighter/Interceptor's, Heavy Bombers, and the kind of damage the satellite shield grid could take and dish out he quipped that they should just scrap all New Republic ships and space defenses and just hire the AE to put up their shield grids around all their worlds and send their Liberator's out to patrol all their space. Job done. He hadn't even seen in action the magna-polaron 'planet killer' primary weapons on the Liberator's or an Alteran drone yet, and he wouldn't until or unless they were needed.

He rightly understood that beside all of the advanced science and technology that was well beyond their own in shields and weapons as well as sensors, navigation, computer, just about everything-was that the key behind it all was power generation. Harry would not elaborate of course as ZPMs are one of the key ingredients to their top secret sauce. But he did agree to the comparison that next to say New Republic ships or other equivalent ships of their conventional enemies, that just per square foot the Alterans could do so much more than they could because they used so much space and fuel on their capital ships just to produce the vast amounts of power needed. And they knew from just the little they'd come to understand the AE ships so far that the power plants were tiny in comparison. That they must have some miracle of power generation to push all that tech to the fore like that.

Harry was sorry that he couldn't explain or demonstrate that to them directly. He thought to the person among the ones he'd gotten to know so far, that they were all good people and could be trusted with the knowledge. But their galaxy contained quadrillions of beings that no-one knew who can be trusted. It was just not safe right now. Harry also understood that with all the AE's advancements and advantages that even their allies could become wary and fearful of them at some point. He tried to dissuade those things, but he wasn't anywhere near ready to reveal the big secrets just to do that.

Master Skywalker remained by Harry's side through most of this as his primary Liaison while Admiral Ackbar and General Solo spent most of their time in the field and in between anchorages and various space stations doing their work. When Master Skywalker had time, he was working with his wife Mara Jade who was currently taking charge of the Praxeum on Callos and keeping the Jedi field teams rotating through assignments. Which had the added benefit of keeping baby Ben Skywalker safely behind AE lines and close to both parents. For the meantime the Praxeum had taken on the double-duty as temporary Jedi Headquarters as well.

...

About a month into the startup of the build-up the Yuuzhan Vong had apparently gone more quiet than usual. The Allied Intelligence believed that they were consolidating their positions since recently taking Coruscant and so much of the other core worlds and inner rim territories. Master Skywalker used the relative lull to lead a couple of espionage missions with some Jedi teams, including one personal mission he wished to accomplish back on Coruscant. He barely escaped that one with his life. Of course he really could say that about most of his missions.

Jedi Masters Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker, and Knight Tahiri Veila arrived on the recently-captured Coruscant with the aid of Lando Calrissian, and on the planet they found a genetically-engineered monstrous Irek Ismaren masquerading as Lord Nyax (from Corellian bed-time stories, their bogeyman). Nyax, his mind having been replaced almost entirely with electronic parts, was bent on opening a Force nexus located beneath the old Jedi Temple.

Luke, Mara, and Tahiri were able to kill Nyax with the help of Wraith Squadron, but not before he was able to open the Force nexus he'd been after. Following Nyax's death and during the strike team's escape from Coruscant they confronted the Vong, Viqi Shesh, who had been sent to the planet to help capture them.

On another such mission, Master Skywalker led a team composed of Jedi Knights and the New Republic Archaeological Corps to Ossus to prevent the Yuuzhan Vong invaders from uncovering any secrets that could reveal any weaknesses of the Jeedai.

Most of the remainder of the year was spent with Harry, Admiral Ackbar, and General Solo secretly building up the counter-offensive armada. While Master Skywalker and other Jedi continued to embark on a series of missions they believed would help them gain some advantages on the enemy.

General Solo turned over the Planetary defense transition project to other capable hands once it was running smoothly and then he and former Chief Solo were traveling to sectors of the galaxy that were most likely to join the Yuuzhan Vong in a policy of appeasement hoping to receive leniency for their own planets, people, and especially governments. Han and Leia's goal was to make contact with secret resistance cells on each planet in order to support them in making sure that their governments wouldn't align with the Vong, and that they would also be able to fight the invaders. One particular journey to Aphran IV got them locked away in a prison cell, which forced C-3PO and R2-D2 to help them escape. Han and Leia fought past the forces holding them and they escaped, with the government of Aphran IV left unlikely to join the Vong.

Back on Borleias, which had become the Vong's next major target after Coruscant, General Wedge Antilles continued to operate the defenses there, holding Czulkang Lah's forces off for the majority of the engagements and successfully employing several psychological warfare tactics designed to increase Yuuzhan Vong sentiment that both Jedi Knight Jaina Solo was the physical manifestation of one of their Trickster goddesses Yun-Harla; and that the pipefighters (a faked star fighter with no actual firepower) were capable of being utilized as a superweapon to attack Coruscant's defense fleet.

The New Republic abandoned Borleias following their defensive victory, though they had ultimately gained the government a great deal of time with which to plan their next moves with the Allied Forces.

...

During the second half of the year the AE foothold was spreading and becoming more secure in their new territory. The NR forces were regrouping in the joint hidden anchorage at Tango Charlie, wounds were healing and morale was improving. The Jedi and the Republic were waging a campaign of espionage to buy time and trying to de-stabilize and confuse the Yuuzhan Vong.

While that was going on, the efforts for preparing the counter-offensive had become just a matter of everything getting done. So, Harry used a number of lull periods to make visits back home to his family and check in on the rest of the Empire. During one such trip he took a personal tour of a number of other galaxies and star systems to show face and see the progress of things.

Terra Legato had grown to where it alone had a permanent population of just over one thousand, while the Academy of Advanced Magic was turning out five hundred new graduates per year. The number of trained Imperial Knights were now over six hundred. The total population of Alterans and Novum including their children was over thirty-eight hundred; and the number of their new ten thousand planned Novah colonies in Avalon was over eleven hundred.

The EarthGov's four colonies in Avalon space numbered over one hundred thousand people between them and their new joint Sateda colony in Pegasus had already grown to more than ten thousand colonists from Earth with three times as many hereditary Satedan who had re-patriated there. The Satedan colony elected Ronan Dex almost against his will to serve as their first Governor, due to his leadership and insights of bringing their remnant people and the humans from Earth together in that fashion.

The EarthForce capital ships had grown to a full twenty-four of the new Enterprise-class Battleship's and they had built twelve Littlefield-class colony ships each capable of transporting and settling ten thousand pioneers at a time. They were busy beginning to plan an expansion of colonies in Pegasus. Finally, Colonel Samantha Carter was promoted to General and she now occupied the command of EarthForce that first belonged to General Hammond, then General O'Neill, then General Landry; all of whom are now retired. EarthGov had applied for and received permission to use the trans-hub network and were planning to begin opening diplomatic and trade talks with other parts of the Empire in the Furling sector, venture out to meet the Kobol Republic, et al. Earth was finally getting its sea-legs under it for inter-galactic travel, and venturing into the larger community. Harry secretly wished he could be there to see both Adama's faces when they were visited by the Battleships from Earth. Ah, but alas, he could not be everywhere at all times. Unless of course he really overdid it with HFR duplicates of himself and took to syncing their memories back to him. Hmm. "Nah, really stupid idea." he decided. "Not worth the headache. Figuratively and literally."

The Kobolian colonials who were sporting some modest hyper-space upgrades courtesy of the AE (because they just couldn't stand watching them travel around in their own space so damned slowly), led by the newly minted Admiral Lee 'Apollo' Adama did find themselves in a shooting war with the Eastern Alliance along with their allies the Western coalition and soundly defeated them. The recently renamed Kobol Republic now spanned full control of the original thirty light-years of space they had traveled in Galactica's journey. The humans of the Kobol Republic sector were finally free of oppression and united under a Republican rule at Canceron, with former Commander, now retired Admiral and first-term President William Adama presiding. He said he was getting too old and agreed to only serve one term to ensure that the new government got set off on the right foot. Formal trade had begun between them and the AE colony that was established there for just that purpose.

New Krypton was thriving and it's population started to grow, while it not only staffed small outposts to manage the Phantom Zone prison in each of the inhabited Empire galaxies. It had just begun a major colonization initiative to the recently explored Cetus Dwarf galaxy, rich with red giant stars, to be led by newly minted Captain Clark Kent Kal-El accompanied by his wife Chloe and cousin Kara-El; aboard the first of a new Jor-El class of Kryptonian Battleship.

Harry's personal stock as well as that of Terra Legato and the whole 'what's an Alteran?' business went up quite a bit in the wizarding world when they gave them the Werewolf cure free of charge. There were now former werewolves requesting immigration to Terra Legato to become citizens in order to get the reproductive treatment so they could live normally and start a family. It was required for them to become Alteran Novum to receive this treatment since all of their subsequent children would be full Alteran. Hermione had approved of this program in Harry's absence and it was expected that over the course of the next decade it might bring in another ten thousand Novum from around the world. They would all still need to go through the Academy and graduate. Hermione also informed him during his visit that their former Headmaster Albus Dumbledore had died of old age and Minerva McGonagall replaced him as Headmistress.

The Ark genetic research project had not gotten far yet as it was taking time just to organize samples from all the diverse magical creatures. The portion that was to involve sapient magical creatures would be stalled until Harry could find time to work on that himself as he planned. To him this was not as big a priority as sorting out both the war and the force issue in Triangulum, so it would remain on hold for awhile.

The Furling sector was thriving under the rule of the Empire since they were not oppressed and treated like cannon fodder or slaves anymore, and the general quality of life and economy was improving for the ten thousand worlds of those three galaxies. Inter-galactic trade to and from Avalon and the Empire's other colonies was beginning to pick up and some of the worlds and merchant class in the Furling sector had begun applying to the Capitol for permission to explore and colonize some of the other galaxies of the local group that the Empire had opened up. All galaxies except the few that were quarantined and Triangulum were opened up to all member states via the trans-hub network.

...

By the years end Harry finished catching up with other work in the Empire and managed to convince himself that his best friends and most important government officials had not forgotten him. Then he returned to Triangulum since the full counter-offensive armada had finished being amassed and cross-trained. Eighty-five hundred of the AE Destiny planetary defense forces had been detached and transitioned to the seventeen hundred star systems or planets of the AE Protectorate. With five hundred remaining in reserve at Tango Alpha. All they were waiting for was the right moment and the all-go decision from the new government on Mon Calamari.

Reports had come in of a number of sightings of Yuuzhan Vong scout ships near the Avalon Empire Protectorate. So far no shots had been fired since they had not ventured across the border yet. Clearly they were trying to take the measure of the AE before they committed to it.

The Allied Forces knew that they shouldn't wait too long for the Yuuzhan Vong to recover from the loss of two world ships last year and try to hit them before new ones can be created and they can start doubling and tripling their ship production again.

At the same time, Master Skywalker wanted to lead an expedition to Zonama Sekot, the living sentient planet that also happened to be the seed of the original Yuuzhan Vong home world in their home galaxy, which had been destroyed in their species civil war. His aim was to convince the sentient world to use its influence on the Yuuzhan Vong to stop the war. Harry just wanted to know how the sentient living planet that is the seed of a home world in another galaxy found it's way to the Triangulum galaxy. From what the Jedi told him, it had been there far longer than the Yuuzhan Vong invaders that recently arrived. How did it get there? Why did it come there? And certainly there was nothing like this that he recalled seeing in Alteran history. This would be another unusual encounter to at least share with the Furling Eldest someday and maybe get his take on it. But, Harry was beginning to wonder if it was even worth trying to understand the origin of every new and unusual thing they came across anymore; since the pace at which they encounter those new things keeps picking up. Unfortunately for Harry ever since he could remember everything in his life seemed to come with waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In the meantime, the Allied Forces were not going to wait to see how Master Skywalker's gambit turned out. Also because they rather doubted that even if Zonama Sekot wanted to stop the war and managed to do so, that they would likewise out of the goodness of their hearts (did they have hearts?) leave the worlds and territory they had already captured. The Republic was going to re-claim Coruscant and their allied worlds, regardless of Master Skywalker's efforts.

...

Meanwhile on a beautiful planet called Shili in the expansion region that had somehow so far been passed over by the Yuuzhan Vong. An aging blue eyed Togruta female who lived in seclusion saw the news of the coming of the mysterious and powerful race of humans from beyond the rim who recently bargained for a small piece of territory in the outer rim sectors in exchange for an alliance with the New Republic.

She'd heard the rumors of their strange powers and abilities that were like the force yet nothing like the force at all. She was getting old and there was no one left in the galaxy she would trust that she thought could do anything with the knowledge she held. No one left alive now that would even remember her, which usually worked in her favor these days. She would make one last journey, to seek out this Harry Potter of the Avalon Empire and tell him what she knew. Then she could go to her peace and be one with the force.

A/N:

-Additional details for the borders of the new Avalon Empire region within Triangulum. I actually have a couple maps of this with these borders drawn but I have no way of posting them.

Specifically, the new Avalon Empire Protectorate was defined as the new Triangulo Sector (even though no one except the AE new they actually had a secret rimward planet and anchorage actually called Triangulo-they just thought the AE named their region this after their name for the galaxy, which of course is also true): comprising that area of the outer rim territories beginning at the coreward border of the Wazta Sector, and the Yarith and Anoat sectors of the Greater Javin Region with the spinward border marked at the Anoat sector border on the Galactic east of Bavva, and the trailing border marked at the trailing and rimward edge of grid coordinate F21, and from those two points on a radial from the galactic barycenter rimward to the edge of the galaxy.

The is included the bulk of the known space consisting of all of the following known sectors-the extant Anoat and Yarith sectors of Greater Javin; the Wazta Sector, Koradin Sector, Tunka Sector, Rayter Sector, and Varada Sector; less the Bri'ahl sector and less the mid-rim and coreward Javin sector itself, and not as far coreward as Mugaar. And includes those portions of several former spinward outer rim sectors whose territory fell within the radial border of the new region such as (Tungra, Kriz, Seita, Saijo, and Kallea.)

The Triangulo Region includes the region of the Twin Nebulae, Kiax and Ivax; and all that was previously considered part of the Anoat and Yarith sectors, and from there rimward including all of the previously semi-autonomous systems of the New Republic or independent systems that lay within this radial such as but not limited to Anoth, Zonju, Kinooine, Saijo, Manpha, and Imynusoph; but, not as far spinward as Terminus.

Googling for these map images might help you gain an understanding of all that.

[ starwars AnoatSectorMap ]

[ starwars Outer_Rim_Sectors ]


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Timeframe: 2015-2016 (28-29 ABY)

In ABY 28-29, the New Republic was reorganized into the Galactic Alliance on Mon Calamari; and Jacen Solo escaped the Yuuzhan Vong with the help of the traitor Vergere.

Jacen and Vergere came to Mon Calamari and Jacen reunited with his friends and family in a vacation given by Admiral Traest Kre'fey on the water planet while Vergere was detained by New Republic Intelligence to see if she was a spy for the Yuuzhan Vong, especially considering that she had aided Elan's failed plot to destroy the Jedi. All of Jacen's friends and family, including Jaina, Luke, Mara Jade Skywalker, Han and Leia, all hated Vergere for torturing him.

When Harry heard the story he asked Master Skywalker not to permit the traitor Vergere to learn any of their secret plans or the location of or be allowed entrance to any of their facilities within Avalon space, regardless of how much she might be suddenly helping them against the Yuuzhan Vong.

Harry said that he didn't care if she was a Jedi, former Jedi, and/or officially or only suspected of being a Sith; either way he didn't want her anywhere near him or he might be inclined to act rashly. Why they were going to trust her to help them now he did not understand and did not agree with. A sentiment Han agreed with wholeheartedly.

...

The first half of the year was occupied by the New Republic re-organizing itself into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, more commonly referred to as the Galactic Alliance (GA). Incorporating most of the known galaxy, the Galactic Alliance was the first government to achieve that since the Galactic Empire. The new Avalon Empire Protectorate declined to join to be subject to their new government, remaining independent albeit their allies in defense of the galaxy. Chief Omas figured that would be the case but diplomacy demanded he asked one way or another.

The High Council was also reestablished with half the members being Jedi masters and the other half good trusting members from the Senate and military. At which time, Intelligence Director Dif Scaur along with former Admiral Ackbar, now old and dying with not long left to live, returned to brief the new High Council and Chief of State, with a plan to wipe out the Vong called Alpha Red. (not the original Alpha Red, my retconned and AU Alpha Red...see below).

Alpha Red was the Alliance codename given to the secret build-up of a counter-offensive force in cooperation and with the assistance of the Avalon Empire. Most remembered the treaty and defense alliance of course, but almost no one except those with a need to know knew about the secret anchorages and the amassing of forces. All anyone ever heard about was the public facing effort of the Avalon Empire Protectorate, dispatching ships to takeover planetary security; their sanctuary provided to the Jedi; and their world reclamation projects.

Director Scaur reported that with the leadership of newly elected Galactic Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas, and the recent renewed diplomatic efforts of former Chief Solo and General Solo they were able to persuade the Hapes Consortium and the Imperial Remnant whom had recently been forced by the Yuuzhan Vong to retreat from their capitol at Bastion to join the cause, which even now mustered ships preparing to join their counter-offensive when the word was given.

The new members of the GA likewise recognized the treaty and alliance with the AE and their new territory, and the AE recognized the new signatory's of the treaty; but would not trust the Imperial Remnant with access to their secret anchorages at the last minute. They would need to earn their trust individually by their future actions.

It was obvious they only came back to ally with the GA out of desperation. It was a wise move too because it would prevent Harry diplomatically from just going to IR space, annexing it, and just giving it-ships and all to the GA (if he had been so inclined). In the way forward they took, they would remain in power and have semi-autonomous rule of their own region still (and could always rise up after renewing their strength to stir more trouble when it suited them...no, Harry would be keeping an eye on them).

Director Scaur with Admiral Ackbar introduced Avalon Admiral Dean Thomas who briefed the leadership on their plan.

The Allied Forces came to request authorization from Chief of State Cal Omas to approve the allied strike plan to re-claim Coruscant and Borleias. Taking advantage of the confusion being facilitated by the changes Jedi Knight Jacen Solo caused to the World Brain of the Yuuzhan Vong on Coruscant as well as the successful psychological warfare campaign waged by Jedi Knight Jaina Solo and General Antilles. Then from thereafter assuming their success; they would chase the enemy fleets into oblivion and one by one re-take the entire galaxy from them.

It was determined that they would simultaneously counter-attack in a three-pronged offensive against Coruscant, Borleias, and Ebaq 9-the latter of which where the GA had recently successfully drawn off a significant amount of Yuuzhan Vong forces to, thus dividing them.

Admiral Thomas then outlined a summary of the Allied Forces they had in secret hidden anchorages ready to strike. From the Avalon Empire, led by Admiral Dean Thomas:

Three full AE fleets that consisted of seventy-two Liberator-class Carrier-Battleships and their four hundred thirty-two Destiny-class Battle-Cruisers. Including one-hundred and three-thousand six-hundred eighty fighter/ interceptors, twenty-five thousand nine-hundred twenty heavy bombers, twenty-four thousand four-hundred eighty assault drop ships, and seven-hundred twenty-thousand marines. With one full sector defense fleet and their planetary defense forces in reserve.

From the Galactic Alliance: Led by Admiral Traest Kre'fey, General Wedge Antilles, General Keyan Farlander, General Lando Calrissian, Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker leading:

Three Imperial-class Star Destroyers, one Dauntless Heavy Cruiser, twenty-two Mon Calamari MC80B Star Cruisers, eighteen Bothan Assault Cruisers, one-hundred twenty-two Corellian gunships, thirty-two Hapan Nova-class battle cruisers, twelve Hapan Battle Dragons, two-hundred eighty-four Strike-class medium Cruisers, five-hundred two Carrack-class light cruisers, and Starfighter Wings totaling fifty-five thousand aircraft including: the Taanab Yellow Aces, Red Squadron, Rogue Squadron, Twin Suns Squadron, Wraith Squadron, E-wing Escorts, Nssis-class Clawcraft, Miy'til Starfighters, Tie/LN Starfighters, Tie/IN Interceptors, B-Wing Starfighters, Grapplers; and joined by several independent's: the Lady Luck, Wilde Karrde, Millennium Falcon, Page's Commando's, the Bacta Squad; and 250,000 YVH-1 (Yuuzhan Vong Hunter) Battle Droids.

Director Scaur retook the floor to brief the leadership on Yuuzhan Vong forces expected to be in the defense of their primary target-Coruscant, or as the Vong then called it, Yuuzhan'tar.

One one-hundred kilometer diameter world ship called the Shimmra's Citadel. The flagship Yammka's Mount, several cluster-ships, hundreds of A-vek liluunu fighter carriers, dozens of Mi'id ro'ik destroyer analogs, dozens of Yorik-vec assault cruisers, dozens of Matalok cruiser analogs, hundreds of Yorik-Akaga picket analogs, hundreds of yorik-trema transport skiffs, tens of thousands of yorik-et coralskipper starfighters, thousands of slayer ship starfighters, a and a hundred Ro'ik Chuun M'arh frigate analogs.

Dir Scaur also announced that while they launched their campaign, Master Luke Skywalker accompanied by Master Mara Jade Skywalker, Master Saba Sebatyne, Knight Jacen Solo and others would be journeying to Zonama Sekot to plead for their intervention against the Yuuzhan Vong.

...

After a brief break, Supreme Commander Sien Sovv took the floor to lay out the detail of the engagements and the overall war plans.

Harry privately knew that his forces could handle the entire campaign without any of them, but it was for the best all around if their people believed their own forces liberated them. Plus, perhaps the common cause that brought the Imperial Remnant and Hapes Consortium together with the GA to unite the majority of the galaxy, might have good long term benefits.

Supreme Commander Sien Sovv took the floor assisted by Admiral Ackbar, and Admiral Thomas to outline the details of their counter-offensive.

"After having reviewed footage and other analysis of previous New Republic engagements against the Yuuzhan Vong, it was determined that the Republic's biggest weakness against them is that our deflector shields are not very effective against the super-heated plasma kinetic projectiles of the Vong-and the moment our shields fail, our hull armor can not withstand it at all." said Supreme Commander Sien Sovv.

Admiral Ackbar took it from there: "Our weapons are fine in matched numbers, but our defenses are weak in comparison. So,

the Avalon Empire Liberator Carrier-Battleship's will jump in first at all three locations, taking advantage of the AE's superior hyper-space navigation and superior shields."

"Then they will use their heretofore top secret primary magna-polaron cannon weapons against the enemies largest capital ships in the opening salvo of the campaign. We aim to hit them fast and hard out of the gate and take away from them their sole remaining world ship, then their flagship, and as many of their other Star Destroyer and Carrier analog ships as we can in that first salvo." said Admiral Ackbar, weazing and looking faint. He was not well at all.

There was mumbling throughout the leadership about this top secret weapon the AE had; and their beloved and elderly Admiral's poor health.

...

Admiral Thomas helped Admiral Ackbar to regain his balance and placed his hand comfortingly on his shoulder, continuing for him:

"Which will be followed by the AE Destiny battle-cruiser escorts that will then advance with the bulk of the GA forces alongside them, inside their expanded shield perimeters. The Liberators will then hang back to draw primary fire from the enemies remaining capital ships, to provide shield and point defense screening protection for the GA carriers and support ships in the rear of the formation." said Admiral Thomas.

Admiral Thomas continued with the briefing:

"After the main forces re-claim air and space superiority of those worlds, the Allied Forces will land their armies on the surface and begin retaking the planets themselves. This will include four hundred thousand Marines and sixty-four Imperial Knights from the AE dedicated to re-taking Coruscant in the company of the balance of the remaining available Jedi who are not on other missions working as their partners, the GA's two-hundred fifty thousand YVH-1 droids, and a million GA troopers and other battle droids." said Admiral Thomas.

"Once the ground campaign for Coruscant begins, the AE will leave three Liberator task forces there for defense and air support equal to the forces that are then still at Ebaq 9 and Borleias to help hold all three strategic locations. While the remainder is divided equally into nine separate new Task Groups that will then accompany nine GA counterpart Task Groups to begin assaults to liberate the remaining conquered worlds beginning with the next most strategic or heavily defended, on and on until the Yuuzhan Vong are completely driven back out of the galaxy." said Admiral Thomas.

Admiral Thomas paused for effect to see if anyone was going to burst forth with any questions. No one did, so he continued.

"Assuming we are successful in space at all three primary strategic locations on day one, then by day two we should be well on our way to beginning to re-claim the following nine systems: Bastion, Yaga Minor, Belkadan, Sernpidal, Obrai-Skai, Bilbringi, Duro, Dubrillion, and Runaway Prince (Lordunkee Wanpolla). With those engaged, we will also have all four of the enemies known shipyards locked up." said Admiral Thomas.

Now the murmuring turned to: 'did these people really believe they could engage in a counter-offensive that in two days would cripple the Yuuzhan Vong?'

As if to answer their unstated questions, or perhaps he heard them, Supreme Commander Sien Sovv took back the floor and said:

"With that, we believe by the end of day two we will be on the way to crippling the Yuuzhan Vong's ability to make war in this galaxy and should by then be able to force them into surrender on our terms." concluded Supreme Commander Sien Sovv.

The leadership took little time in deliberating and approved the campaign. It would begin the following morning. The GA forces were already standing by near their targets, hidden in hyper-space by beacons and hyper-space cloaking provided by the proximity of their AE fleet escorts.

...

The next morning (Mon Calamari time), the Allied Forces struck.

Forty-Eight Liberator's jumped into Coruscant orbit, startling the Yuuzhan Vong into disarray. Immediately and without any warning, twelve of the Liberator's broke off formation, targeted the one-hundred kilometer diameter world ship called Shimmra's Citadel and simultaneously struck it with their combined forty-eight magna-polaron cannons.

The bows of the dozen twelve-kilometer behemoths lit up looking like four eyes brighter than a sun as from each, four beams of highly focused magna-polaron energy burst forth ignoring the gravimetric effects of the Vong's dovin basal shields. In fact, the gravimetric effects of the dovin basal's actually helped narrow and focus the targeting of the beams, such is the effect that the dovin basal's dense gravity waves have on polaron's. You could almost believe this weapon was designed specifically to penetrate those defenses, since all the Vong's shield did was focus and intensify the effect of the beams.

The world ship which had been trying to spin and return fire with it's hundreds of large Yerat-Kor plasma cannons just stopped as if frozen, started to shake and then suddenly exploded into millions of pieces of flaming debris that would rain down onto Coruscant as meteorites setting fire to thousands of square miles of vongforming that was still going on below.

At the same time, the other thirty-six Liberator's each took out the next largest threats. The Yammka's Mount, flagship of Warmaster Nas Choka was on fire and heading to its grave on Coruscant, or at least the chunk that was left of it was. And all of the Vong Mi'id ro'ik Star Destroyer analogs were destroyed, as well as all three Vong cluster-ships and a couple of their fighter carriers.

By the time the stunned Yuuzhan Vong found the next in command to begin returning fire with the rest of their far less formidable fleet, the rest of the Allied Forces led by three Imperial-class Star Destroyers, one Dauntless Heavy Cruiser and their thousands of other ships had jumped in alongside the two-hundred eighty-eight Destiny battle-cruisers and were advancing on the remains of the Vong's orbital defenses. Fighter's were launching from all carriers, with the Allies outnumbering the enemy three to one.

Harry watched with rapt interest from the comfortable bridge of his personal flagship, the Leviathan. Which he was in, remaining cloaked and just shadowing the offensive in case the power of his ship would be needed. As expected, so far it was not. He wasn't going to miss watching all this firsthand though. The other Heads of State remained at Mon Calamari, while the other leaders of the Fleet were aboard their own flagships coordinating with each other. Harry officially wasn't part of the campaign, unless he saw fit to bring the Leviathan into it for some reason himself.

Harry then turned his attention to real-time status from Borleias and Ebaq 9, which each had twelve Liberator's and seventy-two Destiny taking point. The same degree of success was met there. All enemy capital ships had already been destroyed and they were now beginning an air-to-air campaign with their fighters. Unlike in the Coruscant strike, the Liberator's in those engagements remained at the front and used their powerful plasma cannons and never-miss tracking and targeting systems to swipe a thousand Vong coral skippers out of space per salvo. The GA fighter pilots were shocked as well as quite happy that the AE main plasma cannons were also effective as air defense batteries and were so accurate and so fast. It was making their job a cake walk. And unlike normal engagements of this scope they didn't have to worry about friendly fire from the AE because they never seemed to miss their discrete targets, whereas by comparison the GA ships seem to just fire turbo lasers in a general direction hoping to hit something. God damn they wished they had one of those ships. Especially the Imperials. Their mouths were salivating with what they could do if they had that technology. Wise Imperial officers were recording anything and everything they could of the AE ships during the campaign. They were quite worried about their obvious power.

The battle went on for hours and hours at Coruscant. Not because the Vong were enjoying any success at all returning fire, but because there were so many of them it just took a long time to kill them all. Finally, near the end of the day with the AE taking no casualties, and the GA taking only minor casualties and few fatalities; the campaign for the air and space of Coruscant was won.

They wasted no time in beginning the ground phase, with General Lando Calrissian taking point with the landing of his two-hundred fifty-thousand YVH-1 battle droids that are specifically designed for hunting and killing Yuuzhan Vong. They were provided cover fire by the AE's heavy bombers and fighter/interceptor's, while following them in were almost fourteen thousand AE drop ship's that landed their four hundred thousand Marines (a mixture of HFR, human, and other races from within the Empire). They were accompanied by one Knight-Carrier and their full complement of sixty-four Knight's, each with their personal six HFR warrior escorts, and their partners the remaining Jedi Knight's who came along for the ride and would work together to penetrate internal defenses, command and control infrastructure, secure taken strategic locations, and to take out the enemy's leadership.

After that, they were followed by another million GA regulars. Marines, Troopers, Special Forces, Commando's, and more droids.

With the ground invasion successfully underway and the GA regular forces who unlike the Jedi were unused to getting a serious eyeful of Alteran 'magic' and their 'magic' armor that would appear out of nowhere and could stop any weapon from harming them. They wondered at these people who could wave their hands or make a shielding gesture with their staves and the enemies lava cannons would either magically turn into useless hardened rocks or their projectiles would just stop in mid-air against an invisible shield. It wasn't that much different in general from what they've seen some Jedi do or heard that they could do, but these Alteran's seemed much more in the enemy's face with it. They weren't holding back. Whereas the Jedi seemed to prefer to fight with their light-sabers or talk their enemies to death. It looked like taking the planet back would be a cake walk.

And it would be regardless, because right after Supreme Commander Sien Sovv gave the order for the second phase of strikes to begin, and the nine sub Task Groups formed and launched to their planned targets-the sentient planet Zonama Sekot jumped into orbit of Coruscant.

The first thought that Harry had was, "Wow! I wonder what an eleven thousand kilometer diameter planet suddenly appearing in the orbit of an existing twelve-thousand two-hundred forty kilometer planet would do to the gravity of both bodies and the system in general? This ought to be fun to watch. Of course much of it depends on their relative mass, but who knows." as Harry just shrugged his shoulders, conjured a bucket of popcorn and watched the view screen with glee.

According to the reports of the Vong invasion of Coruscant in the first place, they disturbed quite a bit of it from the start. After capturing it, they used giant dovin basal's to drag Coruscant's three smaller moons from their original orbits, while its largest moon was destroyed by tidal stress created by pulses from other yammosk-linked dovin basal's.

They then used a similar technique to drag the resulting expanse of dust, rock, and hardening magma into a wide spreading asteroid belt known as the Rainbow Bridge, orbiting around Coruscant at an angle of seventeen degrees from the ecliptic.

Now, when Zonama Sekot suddenly arrived in the system, it collapsed the Rainbow Bridge, caused another of Coruscant's moons to be ejected from orbit, and pulled Coruscant closer to its original orbit, causing volcanic eruptions and ground quakes for the first time in two thousand years.

Well, Harry got the show he was looking for anyway. He hoped his forces stayed out of the way of the fissures suddenly opening up in various parts of the planets crust and more vongformed kilometer high skyscraper pieces falling in around them. He sent a signal to his forces to let them know what just happened and the cause of it and warned them to take precautions.

It turned out that when the Jedi team traveled to Zonama Sekot, it recognized a glimmer of its old friend Anakin Skywalker in Luke and Jacen, so Sekot allowed them to land and tested them. (The reference is an entirely different story. Prequel to these events, but if you are interested you can go see the SWEU back-story where Anakin, still a padawan, accompanied his master Kenobi there, during the Clone Wars).

Sekot offered to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong entirely, but both Luke and Jacen refused. Nevertheless, Sekot decided to help them, in another way. Zonama Sekot traveled to Coruscant, to speak to the Yuuzhan Vong, which Supreme Commander Sien Sovv allowed. They entered into a temporary truce while they talked.

Sekot managed to convince the Yuuzhan Vong to surrender unconditionally to the Galactic Alliance and remove themselves from all the worlds they conquered.

To everyone's surprise, the war ended just like that. That being the easy way, all parties accepted of course-since the Vong agreed to remove themselves from all held territories (all except the Bothan's who continued their state of ar'krai genocide against the Yuuzhan Vong in retaliation for the death of Borsk Fey'lya).

The converted and surrendered Yuuzhan Vong came to call Zonama home and all those that were on Coruscant left with the planet to self-exile in the unknown regions and from there called all their brethren home throughout the galaxy where they would go off and reform their civilization and figure out what place they were meant to have in the universe.

The Yuuzhan Vong also offered to help un-vongiform their conquered planets. But the process was slow and often incomplete. So, the AE's 'Avenging Angel' planetary restoration business got a huge boost. As thanks to its reputation already, most worlds preferred to have them come and do it for them.

...

Which they did. Over the next few weeks the AE recalled all their forces back within the borders of the Avalon Empire Protectorate. The war having gone far easier than Harry thought it would, and he expected it to be rather easy in the first place. At least on his forces. But the Zonama Sekot thing was entirely unexpected. Yet all is well that ends well if you ignore the fact that these creatures killed three-hundred sixty-five trillion sentient beings, which was about twelve-thousand one-hundred sixty-six thousand percent more beings than the total of Harry's entire inter-galactic empire. The very idea was staggering to Harry.

He informed the Capitol that he would leave all four fleets stationed in the Triangulo Sector for now but, he would only continue to leave the one forward deployed as it already was, patrolling and securing the main coreward ingress points into their territory. With the Seventh, Twelfth, and Nineteenth fleets pulled back to Tango Alpha at Triangulo to be home-ported for the long term there. All personnel on station in the Triangulo sector could rotate back to their home systems and for other leave, using the stargate. He decided to go ahead and allow stargates to be installed on the surface of Triangulo, secure in their Colony for AE use only, to facilitate inter-galactic travel for the personnel.

He would divide the two remaining task forces from the Fourth Fleet at Tango Bravo, one to remain there as Callos was now an outlier to the bulk of their territory but a good strategic place to maintain a trading colony a hidden anchorage nevertheless; and the other Task Force would then be re-assigned to Gerrenthum, where they would now establish their public-facing Capitol for the Sector. The others would simply remain where they were guarding their borders to the sector. Task Force forty-four was re-assigned from Mon Calamari as escort to the Avenging Angel and to 'wave the flag' for the Empire wherever they went in the galaxy making new friends and 'influencing' potential enemies.

Harry sent word back to the Colonization program to go ahead and send a full colony ship to establish a full standard colony minus stargates-at Triangulo, Callos, and one at Gerrenthum which was to be formed as their Empire's Sector Capitol.

Thanks to the special "un-vongforming" mode of the 'Avenging Angel' that they custom designed to just remove the vongforming specifically and to not harm the rest of a given planets pre-existing infrastructure or ecosystem. Harry and the AE made good friends on another one hundred major worlds within the Galactic Alliance, even among worlds in the Imperial Remnant who had only recently started being vongformed themselves.

The AE process was so thorough it did not leave a living vongform anywhere, including the destruction of the world brain that the Vong conveniently left on Coruscant. (thus making other future SWEU encounters with it and others NA and AU). Harry was still thinking privately about chasing them down along with their living planet and destroying the rest of them. But every time he thought of it he remembered Lya's words and didn't think Hermione would be very impressed either. And now apparently the Jedi are friends with it/ them too.

And also, Harry thought after seeing a Hutt that he could do without being their friends. But, it was better than being enemies for what it was worth and they seemed quite happy to sell other people's strategic information. He never thought of himself as xenophobic or in general prejudiced against other sentient species, but that lot? Yuk!

They didn't charge any galactic credits for the service which the Hutt's thought was blasphemy; but they wouldn't argue the point. They simply used the opportunity to forge favorable bi-lateral trade agreements, obtain access to interesting resources and even access to ancient sites and artifacts for archeological study. Beyond that they were just making friends on the ground and helping trillions of people where they could. Building good will. That would help them more than anything else in the long run. The AE came out of it with generally good favorability ratings throughout the galaxy wherever the people knew much about what was going on with the war and who the AE was. There were still many outliers who didn't yet, believe it or not.

And, they developed very high favorability ratings with the native peoples of the twelve planets they sent forces directly to liberate; as well as with the nearly hundred others they helped un-vongform from Helska to Ithor, Dathomir to Yavin, from Bimmisaari to Nal Hutta and Ylesia, the list went on and on.

Harry helped restore Coruscant to it's original orbit and re-captured three of its four moons and put them back into correct orbit. There was nothing that could be done for their former fourth moon, as its remains were now what remained of the Rainbow Bridge asteroid belt.

...

While Harry was focused on helping direct diplomatic and trade efforts with their 'Avenging Angel' program and doing the business of establishing their own three formal full-scale Novah Alteran colonies and their adjacent Alteran/Novum outposts. He was also beginning to direct attention to the assimilation of internal governance and surface security of all the inhabited planets in their sector. That being the case he was not as directly involved in other political affairs of the galaxy and as usual took some time off to return home to spend time with his family.

During the course of the remainder of the year (ABY 29), he kept up with the goings on in Triangulum through news sources, diplomatic updates and the occasional update on news he got from his new old buddy Han Solo from time to time.

It turned out that he hit it off more one-on-one with Han than any of them and they developed a mutual respect for each other, as Harry was a bit as much no nonsense as Han himself was. And Harry recognized the value in such a good friend and contact within the Republic or GA as high-placed among all the right circles as he was.

The GA made its Capitol on the planet Denon while Coruscant was being re-built.

A corporation called RePlanetHab was formed by enterprising aholes who wanted to use their influence in the GA Senate to steal worlds from refugees under the guise of trying to rehabilitate the worlds for them. They didn't get as far as they might have done since the AE was always there either right before them or right behind them with a better offer. It eventually went by the way-side when one of their old 'business associates,' the pirate 'Three-Eye' each thought the other swindled the other and they killed each other off in the style of old fashioned gang warfare.

The Peace Brigade 'traitors' who took the Yuuzhan Vong side in the war, became their 'Jedi hunters' and were the ones to actually attack and drive the Jedi off of Yavin 4, among many other atrocities. Many of their ranking members were placed on trial for treason and war crimes. This included Peace Brigade President Thracken Sal-Solo (Han's cousin) who was captured by Jaina Solo during a battle at Ylesia during the war. Sal-Solo's extradition to Corellia to stand trial was a farce that saw him lauded as a national hero and returned to some political power and influence almost immediately after the war. It would have been much better for him to have been tried at Denon on behalf of the Republic or GA than to return him to the arms of his co-conspirator's to be congratulated for his crimes.

Jedi Master Luke Skywalker called a Jedi Order Conclave on Zonama Sekot to discuss the repercussions of the war and directions for the future of the order. At the meeting it was decided to relocate the Jedi Order to Ossus, a move suggested by Kam Solusar. Other Jedi also decided on various courses of action, such as a number continuing to serve on the High Council, aiding in the reconstruction of Dathomir, returning home or aiding the military.

Master Skywalker and the Jedi Council thanked Harry and the Avalon Empire for their protection and help during the war; and especially their use of the Praxeum on Callos. But, they were moving everything to new facilities now that peace had returned. He asked that once everything got re-settled for both of them if they could meet at Harry's convenience to discuss the preliminary findings of the research of Master Cilghal and Doctor Thomas.

Doctor Parvati Thomas would remain behind and continue to operate the Force Genetics Research Project, working with the many samples and information she'd already received from working with Master Cilghal in the past year or so; and would have some preliminary results to brief Harry and Master Skywalker on in the near future. The rest of the facility would be turned back over fully to the AE to use. So, Harry decided to make it a secondary Citadel for his Imperial Knights. They needed to maintain a significant presence in the galaxy anyway and it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a full backup of the capability there anyway.

...

With the war over and normal trade routes opening back up to the public again, a small archaic weather-worn Imperial Lambda-class T-4a shuttle appeared in Callos space.

"Emperor Potter, planetary security at Callos has escorted an Lambda-class shuttle to the public landing platforms. The sole occupant and pilot of the shuttle, a Togruta female, who so far has refused to give her name, has said she came here to speak to you and to you alone about something of great importance." said Admiral Thomas.

"Thank you Admiral. Just make her feel welcome and at home. I will be there within a day to meet with her and find out what good news she has for me." Harry replied. Sarcastically thinking of the last time someone from this galaxy asked to see him over a matter of great importance.

A/N:

\- I did squash the events of ABY 28 and ABY 29 together a bit. I know that I could've added more to this chapter by covering things that I didn't get into such as the Peace Brigade's treasonous shenanigan's, the Ssi-ruuk invasions, Vergere starting Jacen Solo's Sith training, the Hutt's YV resistance movement. But, to me that all would have just been unnecessary filler of SWEU fanon events that if you know that stuff, you already know about it and it served my story no purpose to re-tell a version of it. Then there is the fact that a lot of that would be stuff that Harry wouldn't necessarily know about or care about, not being involved in all galactic affairs at the moment, nor is he omniscient. I covered what I wanted to in this arc.

\- Some important notes about the results of Conclave and the future of the Jedi order, at this point. In my AU neither the Errant Venture or Lando Calrissian's space station 'Shelter' in the Maw served as shelter or temporary Praxeum for the Jedi young, since they all went to Callos under AE protection instead. The Jedi did still use their secret Eclipse Station, located on an uncharted planet in the Deep Core that provided a safe house for leading members of the new Jedi Order (because naturally, Luke didn't tell Harry everything just like the other way around). Anyway, this effects the SWEU future since now the entire 'Maw Sickness' Arc in my AU is kaput, NA, never happens. I thought some of you would like to know that. Since it is a consequence of this retconned arc and won't be mentioned again and in the future people might say 'what about X?'. It was a major arc 'Fate of the Jedi' that happens after the Darth Caedus arc, but I'm killing it. But, that is also okay because... it won't matter anyway. I'm just telling you now so it doesn't confuse you later. Don't write back to ask me what is going to happen instead because, that would be telling.

\- Here is a list of the surviving Jedi at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong war as noted by their attendance at the Conclave. There may be others scattered around that are not part of the order or couldn't make it for one reason or another; and their are certainly other force sensitive's, adepts, and other 'factions' of force users in the galaxy. The Jedi officially lost half their number from the start to the end of the war, the following are the known remaining official members: Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Markre Medjev, Keyan Farlander, Tam Azur-Jamin, Octa Ramis, Tresina Lobi, Kenth Hamner, Cilghal, Kyp Durron, Klin-Fa Gi, Tenel Ka (Ta'a Chume) Djo (the new Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium), Madurrin, Sannah, Streen, Jacen Solo (future dip-shit of the highest order), Jaina Solo, Kam Solusar, Tionne Solusar, Zekk, Lowbacca, Saba Sebatyne, Tesar Sebatyne, Izal Waz, Corran Horn, Kirana Ti, Tekli, Twi'lek Jedi, Rodian Jedi, Alema Rar, Kyle Katarn, Waxarn Kel, Tresk Im'nel, Wonetun, Cheklev, Tyria Sarkin, Doran Sarkin-Tainer, Tahiri Veila (future junior dip-shit), Damaya, Ben Skywalker (will really try hard for the title of future junior dip-shit and frankly should get the title as an honorific anyway...we'll see if we can clean up his act some in this AU), Valin Horn, Jysella Horn, and Some twenty other children.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Timeframe: Late 2016 (29 ABY), concluded.

Harry arrived at Callos and went to the guest quarters area where they had their visitor spend the night, accompanied by his personal assistant Adam and six personal bodyguards. The first stop was at security.

"Have you scanned her and cleared her for access?" asked Harry.

"Yes, sir." answered the security officer. "She registers as a force user and otherwise she's clean. When we asked her about it, she said she is a former Jedi who served during the Galactic Civil War."

"Very well. I will see her in Meeting Room Three, escort her there in ten minutes. My personal assistant Adam will accompany you to make introductions." replied Harry.

...

Ten minutes later, Adam entered the room with the former Togruta Jedi and said, "Ma'am, please allow me to introduce his Eminence, Emperor Harry Potter." said Adam.

Harry stood and his guest curtsied and said, "Thank you for seeing me Emperor. My name is Ahsoka Tano."

"It is nice to meet you too Ms. Tano. Please, let's sit and you can tell me what troubles you that you had to see me with some apparent secrecy." replied Harry.

They sat. Two of Harry's personal guard stood at attention either side of the door directly behind her, and Adam took a position in the middle of the table between them.

"I apologize for being so mysterious. I just don't trust the Jedi anymore and I didn't want to be prevented by them from seeing you." said Ahsoka.

"That is fine. I am still trying to learn as much as I can about this galaxy and the Jedi in particular. So, it is no trouble. What is it about the Jedi that bothers you and why do you think they would want to stop you from seeing me?" asked Harry.

"I don't really know any of the current Jedi. I was from the previous order before the purge. It is them I came not to trust. But, I don't know the current people that are calling themselves Jedi either, so I don't want to just blindly trust them. Plus, I don't even know if they know some of the things I know and I'm not sure what they would do with the knowledge if they had it." said Ahsoka.

"The rumors are that you and your people have abilities like the Jedi but far more powerful and can do a much wider variety of things with that power, and that it's not the force. Perhaps some kind of magic. Some say you are as powerful as the ancient Celestials were." said Ahsoka.

Harry had become good at not reacting to that, having heard it a fair few times now.

"So, I want to share with you knowledge I gained about the force and about certain theories and concerns that I have and some information about those who were called 'The Ones,' and about their former realm called Mortis. I actually fear what some of the Jedi would do with the knowledge or perhaps just to me for knowing it. On the other hand, with all of the old order dead, they might not even know the importance of it now." said Ahsoka.

"That is very interesting. Now you have me very intrigued. I think we shall take this conversation more private." said Harry, as he motioned for the guards to leave. Adam stayed put.

"Why don't you back up and tell me your story. I think it would help me to have a full picture of the circumstances upon which you came upon this knowledge and your concerns." said Harry, motioning for her to continue.

Ahsoka gave Harry a brief summary of her story from the time she became a Jedi up until her self-exile from the order, prior to the purging.

Flashback-

She is from the planet Shili, trained as a Jedi apprentice during the Clone Wars, the conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. She was assigned to Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker by Jedi Grand Master Yoda. She was involved in the defeat of the Separatist army on the planet Christophsis and was important to Republic efforts during the Battle of Teth. Along with Skywalker, she was instrumental in acquiring the Republic's safe passage through Hutt Space, due to her part in rescuing the son of Jabba the Hutt, which ensured an alliance between the Republic and the Hutt clans.

Later, she and her master achieved many things during the war including stopping the Blue Shadow Virus, freeing Togruta slaves from Kiros, saving her Master and many others on multiple occasions, and even halting a plot masterminded by Darth Sidious himself. She also engaged some of the most deadly people in the galaxy, most notably Asajj Ventress, General Grievous, and Cad Bane several times, always surviving without any serious injury.

She had a brief brush with the dark side on Mortis after being infected with it by the Son and even died, but she was resurrected by the Daughter. She was close with many members of the old Order, which included Plo Koon, Barriss Offee (who later betrayed and framed her), Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luminara Unduli as well as people outside the Order such as Padmé Amidala and Lux Bonteri.

Around 20 BBY, her friend Barriss Offee, who believed the Jedi Order to be evil, and corrupt, and overly belligerent, orchestrated the bombing of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, killed the bomber, Letta Turmond, and caused the deaths of clone troopers while framing Tano for these crimes. While running away from Republic authorities and Skywalker, who still believed her to be innocent, she met her longtime nemesis Asajj Ventress and briefly allied with her, since both were on the run from their masters.

She was led by Offee, the only Jedi whom she still saw as an ally, into a trap at an abandoned Coruscant warehouse in Coruscant's Undercity, where she was captured by Skywalker's forces. The Jedi High Council then expelled Tano from the Jedi Order and turned her over to the Republic for trial. Tano came very close to a conviction and death sentence, but she was acquitted at the last minute by the forced confession of a captured Offee. While the Council pardoned Tano and offered to bring her back into the Order, Tano refused, and she left the Jedi Temple.

Harry was practically enthralled by this story and the source, considering this was exactly the type of information he came to the galaxy to seek-and nearly all of it were about subjects and people that no other Jedi today could know. Apparently, the Potter luck still holds. When Harry expressed an obvious interest in her experience at Mortis, she went on to explain in more detail those events.

Flashback-

After the Jedi Council received a two thousand year-old Jedi distress code from the Chrelythiumn system, Ahsoka accompanied her master, Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi to discover the exact origin of the transmission. Aiding in the search was Captain Rex, who remained aboard an Republic Star Destroyer. Although both parties made it to the rendezvous point, the Jedi were unable to perceive the clone or his cruiser; Rex likewise could not see the Jedi's Eta-class shuttle. At that moment, the Jedi vessel's power and communication systems deactivated as an irresistible force pulled the shuttle into a gigantic crystal-shaped structure (the Mortis monolith); the entire ordeal rendered all three Jedi unconscious.

Upon regaining consciousness, the Jedi trio awoke within their shuttle's cockpit to find themselves located on an unknown planet. As they surveyed the landscape of the planet, a world unbound by the laws of nature and extremely radiant in the Force, the Jedi encountered a mysterious female being known as the "Daughter"—the physical representation of the light side of the Force. Despite her apparent interest in Skywalker and knowing nothing about her, the Jedi had no alternative other than to accept the Daughter's offer to introduce them to her "Father"—the paragon of balance and order within the Force. But while following the Daughter on a cliff path, a rock slide was intentionally caused by an unknown assailant, thus blocking the path and leaving her and Kenobi separated from Skywalker and the Daughter. When the Daughter left to confront their mysterious attacker, Skywalker chose to follow her while she and Kenobi returned to their damaged shuttle in the hopes of repairing their communication systems in order to call for help.

Managing to return to the crash site by nightfall, she and Kenobi discovered that their shuttle had disappeared. They were then immediately confronted by the "Son"—brother to the Daughter and the dark side of the Force personified. When the Son asked if Skywalker truly was the Chosen One, she and Kenobi drew their lightsabers, believing the dark figure to be a Sith Lord; the Son easily disarmed the two Jedi of their weapons. Before departing, he warned them to take shelter in a nearby cave in order to avoid the lightning from the oncoming storm.

While sleeping inside the cave, she was awakened by the sound of her own voice. She then saw a vision in the form of her future self, an older Ahsoka who sought to warn her younger self about the great danger that Anakin Skywalker posed due to his gradual succumbing to the dark side. Before vanishing, the older Ahsoka gave a cryptic warning to the younger version of herself, insinuating that her future might never come to pass as long as she remained at her master's side.

When Skywalker confronted the Father, he was later tested in order to discover if he truly was the Chosen One. To accomplish that, the Father used his children to capture her and Kenobi. While Kenobi was restrained by the Daughter, she was helpless and at the mercy of the Son. The Father then tried to force Skywalker to choose who would live and who would die between the two. Skywalker, unwilling to sacrifice his former master or his Padawan, utilized the Force in an attempt to bring the Son and the Daughter onto their knees in submission; her master succeeded and in doing so, demonstrated his ability to create and maintain balance between the two conflicting sides of the Force. But rather than remain on Mortis to complete his destiny, Skywalker opted to leave with her and Kenobi and leave Mortis via their recovered shuttle.

The Son, on the other hand, was unwilling to allow the Chosen One to leave without first converting him to the Dark side of the Force. Appearing aboard the shuttle, the Son grabbed Ahsoka and forced her to leave the shuttle with him, taking her to his tower in the full knowledge that Skywalker would pursue them. While chained in her prison cell and attempting to free herself, she was approached by a diminutive and seemingly harmless creature. Although it tried to delve into her innermost thoughts and fears, she remained firmly attached to the belief that her master would rescue her at any cost.

Although the creature helped her to escape from her chains, it tried to convince her to forget about Skywalker. When she made it clear that she would not willingly turn against her master, the creature sunk its teeth into her arm. As she swiftly fell unconscious, the creature revealed itself to be the Son in disguise. Lacking the necessary time to seduce the young Jedi into voluntarily descending into darkness, the Son chose instead to force the dark side onto her by infecting her with its taint. She was utterly helpless against the power of the dark side; its effects physically and psychologically corrupted her into a hateful being with a bloodlust for battle and an unbreakable sense of loyalty to the Son.

Meanwhile, Skywalker succeeded in scaling the Son's tower, only to find his apprentice waiting for him. Although initially relieved to be reunited with her, Skywalker became uncomfortable as he noticed an undeniable change in her personality. She, deeply immersed in the power of the dark side, increasingly gave in to her subconsciously suppressed fears and resentments. It was then that she finally revealed her own frustrations with Skywalker, judging her master to be overly critical and constantly unsatisfied with her as his Padawan. Skywalker tried to convince her to return to the light, but she refused, declaring her loyalty to the Son and the cause of the dark side for the greater good of the galaxy. With that, she issued her master an ultimatum—join the Son and embrace the dark side by killing her or refuse and die by the hand of his own apprentice. When Skywalker declined to fight or harm his student, she responded accordingly, activating her lightsaber and charging her master in a frenzied craze.

She seized the offense by unleashing a barrage of saber strikes at her master, who maintained a defensive stance so as to prevent her from killing him without harming her in the process. During the fight, she revealed some of her hidden feelings of bitterness and annoyance toward Skywalker, particularly her hatred at being called "Snips" by her master. Even with the intervention of Kenobi, who had originally arrived at the tower alongside the Daughter to confront the Son, she confidently welcomed the challenge and activated her shoto in order to take the offensive against the two Jedi with both of her sabers. Unable to overcome Ahsoka without hurting her, Kenobi revealed that the Daughter helped him to acquire a dagger that could kill the Son. Realizing the new threat that the Jedi posed to the Son, she increased her attacks, attempting to retrieve the dagger.

At the same time, the Son and the Daughter fought each other in the tower's throne room. Their battle, however, was brought to an unexpected end by the Father, who used his power to cast both of them out into the courtyard. She broke off her own engagement with Skywalker and Kenobi to watch as the Son rose to rid himself of the Father once and for all. As the Son assaulted his Father with a powerful barrage of Force lightning, she smirked approvingly while the Son denounced the Father as weak and meaningless. As the dark side grew greater in power, the Son overcame and brought the Father to his knees by increasing his lightning attacks. Seizing the moment of distraction, Kenobi tossed the dagger to Skywalker so he could kill the Son from behind. However, she intercepted the dagger before her master could catch it and swiftly made her way to the Son's side. With the Father defeated and the others powerless to do anything, the Son gloated about how everything had worked perfectly in accordance with his plans. When he commanded her to hand over the dagger, she complied with hesitation, ignoring her master's final attempt to urge her to resist the dark side. No longer seeing any further use for her, the Son thanked her before draining the life force from her body, thus leaving her on the brink of death.

Although the Son intended to use the dagger to kill his Father, he inadvertently stabbed the Daughter in the back when she used her body to shield their Father. Horrified at having murdered his sister whom he still loved, the Son flew off in a rage. Skywalker begged the Father to save Ahsoka before it was too late. With the Father's help, Skywalker acted as a conduit to transfer the last of the Daughter's life force into her, thus bringing her back from the brink of death and purging her of the darkness that the Son had infected her with. As a side effect, she retained no memory of her brief conversion to the dark side. With no other option, the Jedi left the Father to grieve over the loss of the Daughter while they returned to their shuttle so that they could flee from Mortis and the Son.

As she attempted to repair the shuttle for their escape from Mortis, Kenobi and Skywalker debated on whether or not they should leave before defeating the Son, due to the great threat that he posed in his utterly corrupt condition. Skywalker made the decision to confront the Son, and shortly after Kenobi pursued his former student, only to discover that Skywalker had willingly embraced the dark side and joined the Son out of necessity. After vaguely describing the visions of the future that led him to make his decision, Skywalker and the Son headed toward the shuttle with the intention of leaving Mortis in order to alter Skywalker's Sith destiny.

Kenobi urgently contacted her and ordered her to abandon the shuttle, but not before rendering its engines useless. Although initially dismayed at having to undo her hard work, Ahsoka complied when Kenobi revealed that Skywalker was heading to her location and had given himself over to the Dark side of the Force. Despite her initial shock at the revelation of her master's descent into darkness, she discreetly exited the shuttle to put distance between herself and her corrupted master. It did not take long for Skywalker to realize that his own Padawan had sabotaged his efforts to escape from Mortis. In order to prevent the possibility of Kenobi and her receiving any further help from the Father, the Son left Skywalker to retrieve the dagger from his sister's tomb. It was then that the Father used the window of opportunity to wipe out Skywalker's memories of the visions that he saw, thus restoring her master to the light side for the time being.

She and Kenobi rejoined Skywalker and the Father at the monastery where they were confronted by the Son once more. Rejecting his Father's final plea for him to turn back from the dark side, the Son fought and easily overpowered his opponents, countering their attacks and retaliating with his own considerable power. The fight came to an unexpected end, however, when the Father turned the dagger on himself. He sacrificed himself to prevent the Son from stealing his power, and at the same time robbed the Son of his own powers. The Son, shocked and defenseless, failed to prevent Skywalker from fatally impaling him with a lightsaber blade through the chest. With all three incarnations of the Force destroyed, the realm of Mortis was destroyed in a burst of light.

Upon awakening, she, Skywalker and Kenobi found themselves once more in their shuttle, floating in space. At that moment, they were contacted by Captain Rex and were confused to discover that only a moment had passed since they lost all power and communication. To them, the time they had spent on Mortis had been considerably longer. Although still somewhat confused by their entire ordeal, she and her fellow Jedi completed their rendezvous with the Republic Star Destroyer.

After she told her version of the events at Mortis, she revealed that many years after her self-exile from the order that betrayed her and which was supposed to be wise enough to know better-that her full memories came back to her of the time she had spent infected by the dark side at Mortis and her own near death and resurrection. She later reasoned out that she only recovered those memories after both Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker, who was by then Darth Vader had both died-when news of the wars end and the circumstances became public knowledge. She didn't know why that was.

She added that if she had only known that Master Kenobi survived the purge of the Jedi, she would have sought him out herself long ago.

She went on to say that what she learned in those last two years before leaving the order was the most important. She had come to suspect that there was something terribly wrong with the force when not two years before Master Skywalker's fall, he was trying to rescue her from the taint of the dark side the Son had infected her, fought so hard against him, and with the fathers help then served as the conduit for the daughters dying energy to resurrect her.

Then to only moments later fall to the dark side himself and become the Son's ally because of some visions the Son showed him of the future. To then suddenly once again only moments after that, return to the light side after the father wiped her master of the memory of those visions. - then to fall all over again to the seduction of Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious. And again...finally, followed by decades later, if one were to believe the rumors since - he once again returned back to the light for mere minutes before his death when he changed sides to save his son Luke (whom he captured in the first place) during his battle with Sidious.

"So, how was my master allegedly the one prophesied to return balance to the force? And beside that our history is full of empires risen and fallen because of one dark lord after another, a number of which who were originally trained as Jedi and supposedly good before they fell. Often it is the unusually high place of trust they had in the first place that afforded them the opportunity to take power when they turn dark or reveal themselves as having been dark in the first place. Perhaps the galaxy should simply ban force adepts from positions in the military or politics." said Ahsoka.

"Oh, and get this. It was rumored and believed that my master had no father, that he was conceived by his mother Shmi Skywalker and midichlorians themselves. Is that even possible? How does that happen? ... I think the only reason he didn't have his own cult spring up about him personally was that none of the other masters would confirm it. But my master himself always did say that he knew he had no father, literally. So, you tell me, was that the immaculate deception or what?" asked Ahsoka.

Harry's eyebrows rose in defiance of his attempts at stoicism but he said nothing and let her continue. He privately thought, "conceived by midichlorians huh? how indeed-this story keeps getting better."

"In general it seems to me that most of the big power struggles one way or another are overly influenced if not directly caused by or at the pleasure of the rising and falling of Jedi and Sith. Considering the size of our galaxy and our governments, doesn't it seem odd that such a comparatively small number of people can control and influence all of that? It seems like pure chaos to me. Is chaos what the force means by balance? Because if it is, I don't think we're going in the right direction here." said Ahsoka.

"I have come to suspect that the force itself is a curse or some kind of disease. It doesn't make a good person better and certainly not infallible. It doesn't make a bad person worse or incorrigibly evil. Those things come from the individuals, and the outcomes are as variable as the people. At best its just a tool. But any tool in the wrong hands or just by careless dumb luck can be a weapon or a calamity, just as easily and just as variably as it can be used for good." said Ahsoka.

"And what is balance anyway? The Jedi dogma teaches that the ideal state in which the force exists in nature is the light side and that the dark side just corrupts it and destroys the natural balance. But to the uninitiated, logic would dictate that if the two opposing sides are light and dark, that balance is in the mid-point between them. In order to achieve that balance, whenever one side, light or dark is in control then there will be natural conflict to sway it back to the other side, reaching through and passing through the middle state, or balance, for a period of time. Who wants that kind of balance anyway? It is clearly unattainable and unsustainable, meaning again, a constant state of chaos in the never-ending throes of attempting to seek the unattainable." said Ahsoka.

"So, I came to warn you about the force and about these people who constantly sway from light to dark back to light then dark then back to light, whatever. As the circumstances seem to fit or based on some external stimuli such as visions, real or fake. Infections of force energy force upon you such as in my case. Or for one personal reason or another, from one to the next." said Ahsoka.

"I see your point, and it is interesting that throughout your history that such a few people with the highest concentrations of force power, swaying to the light or dark or back and forth with almost pathetic ease-turn out to be the facilitators of most of the chaos. Do you think all of that is a coincidence, or do you think there is something more powerful, more primal behind all of that?" said Harry.

"I don't know about that. I suppose that is possible. But the way things go one would think that being would then be seeking power for itself at some point." said Ahsoka.

"What if that beings' very nature subscribes to chaos being the precise power it craves? It might be satisfied by that very process of the unending quest for the unattainable-that might be, its definition of being 'in power'." replied Harry.

"All I know is that there apparently isn't any divine protection afforded to someone who is light-sided from merely being flipped to the dark by all sort of unusual means. And apparently it's become just as reasonable to accept someone who has murdered and destroyed trillions of lives in the service of the dark to be redeemed by one small act, and then handed power and influence again in many cases." said Ahsoka.

"The examples of major fallibility can go on and on. It isn't just my old master. Yoda, who was said to be the wisest and most powerful of the Jedi in an age could not see or even accept the suspicions others had of the Dark Lord Sidious being under their noses of the entire Jedi Order, masquerading as a Senator from Naboo for years while he manipulated a complex chessboard designed to do only one thing, put him into absolute power of the central government of the galaxy. They served under him for years as generals and assassins, leading his fleets and armies, doing his dirty work for goodness sake." said Ahsoka.

"And yet I am supposed to simply accept their wisdom as infallible when they say things like, 'I sense no problem there,' or conversely that they 'sense great trouble' here. Their senses are meaningless. In effect they actually reveal this truth in the teachings. They say, 'let the force work through you, listen to the force, let the force guide you'-not, simply, feel the force energy, use the force, and so forth." said Ahsoka.

"It's all well and good to 'listen to' and 'follow' the force, if you know for certain that what the 'force' is saying is a good thing, or the right and just thing. But, that's just it. The teaching itself says you cannot be the judge of it. You simply need to trust the force. Well, it lies and it misdirects as much as it tells the truth, if it even knows the truth." said Ahsoka.

"So, yes. Maybe you are right. Maybe it was 'The One's' themselves all along influencing all of us from afar. If that is so, since they are dead, what is whispering in the minds of all the Jedi and Sith now?" asked Ahsoka.

"What indeed?" murmured Harry. Ahsoka, didn't take that as an interruption so she continued.

"At least that is what I can tell as far as we common people that are force adept is concerned. It may be that 'The Ones' were different, as it seemed the polar opposites were solid at the core of the son and daughter, and the 'Father' was supposed to be the true balance. But, that was their own advertising anyway-and note that their definition is different from the Jedi dogma and follows more around the linear logic of the two diametrically opposing sides. But, who knows if what they said was even true? The 'Father' was willing to make Skywalker choose the lives of one of his companions as a mere test. That seemed a little out of balance to me, tilting selfishly and callously to the dark side by demonstrating so little regard for life, playing god with other's lives. Where was the light side of that act to serve the balance? Serving the curiosity of the Father? or because knowing would somehow influence his next decisions and actions? again self-serving if he's not in fact, God Himself." said Ahsoka.

"And then there was the existence of 'The Ones' in the first place? How could they have become so powerful? How could so much force power be concentrated like a nexus in the hands of one individual like that? Where did they come from? Are there more of them out there? Is that natural? Are they safe to have around? I say the whole thing is corrupt and dangerous, in all of its forms." asked Ahsoka.

...

"Breath Ahsoka. I sense you have been wanting to vent all this for a long time. That's okay. I am sincerely very interested in all of this, and you are opening my eyes up to some new information. So, I definitely appreciate it." said Harry.

"Are you sure 'The One's' all died?" asked Harry for clarification.

"As far as I know, the realm of Mortis was destroyed that day as a result of them all dying, and in reality we never physically left the shuttle." said Ahsoka.

"You mean it was all just in your mind?" asked Harry.

"Why? Just because it was all in our mind doesn't mean that it wasn't real." said Ahsoka.

Harry's eye twitched for a moment and he had a brief ringing in one if his ears. It felt like someone just walked over his grave or something.

...

After some more follow-up conversation on that topic, Harry handed her a holo-pad with a history of Vergere that he'd managed to put together from multiple sources.

"What do you think of her?" Harry asked.

"I knew of her. The rumors were that Vergere's studies of other rogue Jedi, including Count Dooku, had led her to Darth Sidious, and at some point between 32 BBY and 29 BBY, Vergere became a student of the Sith Lord. My master had some dealings with her. According to rumor, Vergere subsequently attempted to kill Sidious when she discovered the extent of his megalomania, but her murder attempt failed, forcing her to flee from his assassins, accepting a mission from the Jedi Council to Zonama Sekot, where she was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and never heard from again." said Ahsoka.

Harry then explained how she had indeed been heard from again, and further upon Vergere's most recent adventures with the Yuuzhan Vong and young Jacen Solo.

"She certainly did show her true colors then. Well, it is certain that she would have at some point attempted to turn him while she had him in her clutches. I wonder if she met with any success? It seems they worked together to escape the Vong in the end. Why else would she have turned on her allies all of a sudden just to help the boy escape?" said Ahsoka.

"There are some in the order that believe that he managed to turn her back and that is why she helped him." answered Harry.

Ahsoka just scoffed and said, "Well if anyone believes that tell them I have a couple spare Jewels of Haarken to sell them, cheap." replied Ahsoka.

...

"Ahsoka, I had intended to journey to Mortis myself to seek an audience with 'The Ones.' Would you be willing to travel with me to verify that they are gone and Mortis really was destroyed?" asked Harry.

"I will. I can show you exactly where we encountered the Mortis monolith. Like I said, it was no longer there when we left." said Ahsoka.

"I believe you. I just want to double-check before I give up on that path and start down another in my research. It is possible that it just hid itself from you. The whole episode was rather mysterious don't you think?" said Harry.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right at that. I mean until we woke up back on the shuttle we actually believed we were on a planet. I suppose with that anything could be possible." said Ahsoka.

"Excellent." replied Harry.

"Can I ask if you would be willing to sign on with me full-time, to come work for me? First, your knowledge and experience with the force, especially surrounding the One's and their circumstances and the entire era of the former Jedi Order and the Galactic Civil War would be valuable to me as I learn my way around the galaxy." asked Harry.

"You could be my special advisor for force related matters or some other title if you'd like. You would also be able to operate as openly as you want because I could make you a dual-citizen of the Avalon Empire. You can live with us, and you would be protected diplomatically." said Harry.

"Before I answer that. I realize I came to you. And I am grateful that it seems I was right and I came to the right person. I was only hoping to find someone who could do something about it. The best right person I could find to tell my story to. But, you seem to have been quite interested in this already. Before I commit. I need to know what is really going on? What are you after?" countered Ahsoka.

"What if I told you there is much more to the story?" said Harry.

"That's just it. There always is." replied Ahsoka.

"Yes. For one, there is another being, a purely malevolent one, nearly as powerful as 'the Ones', whom they themselves imprisoned that is still in this galaxy only waiting to be unleashed on purpose or by accident. And what if I told you I know who created all of them, 'the Ones' included, how and where the force originated? How it all started? And I came here primarily for the purpose of seeing for myself what the current situation was, and then to see what if anything needed to be done about it, and then if it was in my power, try to fix it one way or another?" said Harry.

"I would say you are frightening me unless you are full of Bantha poodoo. Or if you're telling me the truth, you would be convincing me utterly that I came to the right person. If what you are saying is true, then yes I will join you. Let this be the last hurrah for Ahsoka Tano then. I doubt that my force power will be of much help to you though against a being of that power." said Ahsoka.

"It is not your force power that I am interested in. It is your knowledge, your personal and unique experience that no one else in this galaxy can say that they have. I am not one to believe in pre-ordained destiny but, it seems like an act of providence that brought you to see me. I truly just need your advice and counsel as we go through this. We have power enough of our own and I will try to keep you as far from harms way as I can, or at least no more than I myself risk. Deal?" said Harry.

"Deal. Thank you Emperor. Can you tell me about this other threat?" said Ahsoka, as she reached over to shake Harry's hand.

"Sure. And Ahsoka when we are speaking privately, you can just call me Harry. You don't need to use my formal titles all the time. Speaking of that, what do you want to be called? How about Avalon Empire Special Advisor for Jedi Affairs or if you really want to stick it to the other Jedi we could call you, Special Advisor for Midichlorian Poisoning Research." offered Harry.

"I think I will go with the 'Jedi Affairs' one, I don't really want to make enemies of the Jedi unless or until I have to." said Ahsoka.

"Good. I was only joking. Me too by the way." said Harry, with a wink. Trying to loosen up this very heavy conversation a bit.

Then, Harry explained about Abeloth, Bringer of Chaos, her relationship and effectively her creation and subsequent imprisonment by 'The Ones;' the Maw, and the importance of Centerpoint Station in orbit of Corellia; as well as Sinkhole station within the Maw, and the machinery at Kessel. He left out talk of the two fonts initially, not wanting to tempt her or her midichlorians with talk of fonts of power.

The news that his race are cousins of their Celestials could be held off a bit, but he suspected he would be letting some people in on that soon because a strategy around that was beginning to form as a second option, if his first option for how to get control of those stations doesn't pan out.

Then she went ahead and asked it anyway.

"How is it that you know all of these things, especially seeing as how you are from another galaxy?" asked Ahsoka.

Sigh, exhaled Harry. "I could tell you but then I'd have to... Oh, never mind. It is a really huge secret of immense importance. It would help our work together if you knew the full story and I am sorely tempted to tell you but if word of this got out at the wrong time it might prevent us from doing the work we need to do." said Harry.

"There is a way. Something I haven't done in a long time. Let's say it's like a magic spell, like you were thinking that we do. Something I can do that is something like force protection that will prevent the secret I will tell you from being taken from your mind and prevent you from intentionally or accidentally communicating it in any way." said Harry.

"Would you consent for me to put that spell on you, to protect our biggest secrets?" asked Harry.

"Yes, that is fine. In for a wupiupi in for a peggat." replied Ahsoka.

"Eh. I think my universal translator is broken. Adam, do you know what she said?" asked Harry.

"I believe she said, in for a penny in for a pound, sir." replied Adam sounding suspiciously like the Jarvis AI from Iron Man.

"Hmm. Okay, good one." said Harry.

"If you can, just make it so I can't tell any of your secrets that way we can both be sure." said Ahsoka.

"Alright, I will word it such that it can cover any number of things I tell you using the keywords secret or top secret in a conversation; and that to speak of any of them you would need to receive my permission first." said Harry.

Harry did a complicated wandless and wordless spell that mostly seemed to Ahsoka that he was doing nothing at all until he waved his hand in front of her and a blue ray of light shown forth from it and hit her on the head. She didn't feel a thing.

"Was that it?" asked Ahsoka.

"That's it." said Harry.

"Now Ahsoka, everything I have told you so far today about the Avalon Empire, or about myself, or about my mission here related in any way to the Force is top secret. And everything else I tell you from now forward until the end of this meeting is also top secret." said Harry.

"Okay." replied Ahsoka, not realizing that she just accepted the magic and that it was now in effect.

"Good. Well, the answer to your question is that my race, the Alterans, are over sixty million years old and originated in a galaxy far on the other side of the universe. One branch of my race, cousins you could say were the ones who natives of your galaxy refer to as the Celestials. What I know about them and what they did came from my copy of the official archives of their activities in this galaxy beginning approximately one point five million years ago, until they departed this galaxy about ninety nine thousand years ago." said Harry.

"Wow! ... just, Oh Wow!" exclaimed Ahsoka.

"I'm sorry sir. I wasn't acting my age or with the stoicism taught to us in the Academy." said Ahsoka.

"But, oh my god. You do realize that most people in the galaxy still think the Celestials are just a myth? A legend? Don't you?" said Ahsoka.

Harry just shrugged and said, "That is to be expected. And like I said, I don't want this to get around anyway."

"Therefore you see, I know what they said they did here according to their logs during that time period. But, my people know nothing of what transpired after that, say the past ninety-nine thousand years. Except for what I have been able to learn of that history since arriving here a few years ago." said Harry.

"That is the main reason I came to this galaxy. I recently learned of this ancient information and yours was the only remaining galaxy in the local group of fifty-four galaxies that I had not personally explored yet. So, before doing so-I studied the records. And found that history. And I became concerned over what to me appeared to be an unsolved problem that was left behind here. Therefore I came to see if there is still a problem and if so, how I could help." said Harry.

"That is amazing. This is amazing. No wonder you all can do all the things you do. Moving planets, terraforming planets to paradise worlds virtually overnight. Transmute matter with your minds, which by the way is not a Force power, especially on the scale and scope that you all appear to be able to do it. Yes, I definitely think I have come to the right person." gushed Ahsoka.

"Good. Well then. Why don't we get you set up properly. Since you will be my advisor and you can be trusted with our biggest secrets now. You will be stationed here at my Imperial Knight Praxeum on Callos, and you will work side by side with my Doctor Parvati Thomas who is in the process of studying these questions from a genetics and physiology standpoint." said Harry.

"I also went to let you know that I do not personally stay in this galaxy all the time. I travel back and forth between here, my home galaxy Avalon, and others in the Empire, in the course of my duties. Adam here is my personal assistant. He is a human form replicator made up of a hundred trillion microscopic nanites. He is a walking, talking super-computer with artificial intelligence that would make your best droids weep for an upgrade. He will arrange for you to have suitable quarters and will provide you a communication device that you can wear that will always allow you to get in contact with him, and then to me through him. to coordinate anything you need when we are not working directly together. Does that sound good?" said Harry.

"Yes. That is great. This is the best job interview I've ever had." said Ahsoka.

"And it was a very creative way of getting one too." said Harry.

"Also, whenever you travel in the galaxy on Empire business I will ask you to take two Imperial Knights as personal bodyguards. I want to make sure that anyone you come across knows that you are now under the protection of the Empire, and have the means to back it up if necessary. Who knows what kind of nuts might creep out of the woodwork when people get a sniff of what we are looking into. Plus, your own past could easily make you a target for many of those same nuts." said Harry.

"That's fine. I understand and appreciate it. For my own part that is a great deal of the reason I have laid low all these years." said Ahsoka.

"By the way. Do you need to return home to Shili to retrieve any more personal belongings? We can get that done very fast aboard one of our cruisers. We will just secure your shuttle unless you need to return it." said Harry.

"Yes, it would be great if we can stop by my home world to pick up my things as well as give me a chance to tell some people I know that I am going away for a job off planet for the foreseeable future. As for the shuttle, no it's mine. Something I kept squirreled away since the war. Well, my war anyway. You can just store it please." said Ahsoka.

"Good. Well then, welcome to the Avalon Empire, lets go get you set up." said Harry, as they got up and departed to get to work.

...

The following day, before Harry was to head back to Avalon for some meetings there, he was informed of the death by natural causes of Admiral Gial Ackbar. So, he stayed around a few more days in order to attend the funeral and pay his respects. During that visit he ran into Han Solo and they had a little sidebar discussion.

"How did the war crimes trial for Vergere go?" asked Harry.

"She was sentenced to death when the full truth of her collaboration with the Yuuzhan Vong, torture and attempt to turn Jacen to the dark side, and her true status as a Sith was revealed during the trial." said Han.

"Thank you for your support during all of that and for helping us get a ysalamir to dampen her force abilities during the trial, making her vulnerable to the lie detection technology used by the court." said Han.

"It was my pleasure. After I heard about the farce that happened with your cousin, I didn't want to see this one go free too." replied Harry.

"Well, she had her sentence commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole due to pleadings from Luke." said Han, sounding exasperated.

"You know, I love that man like a brother, but his undying belief that everyone is redeemable and deserves a second, third, and fourth, chance always gets on my nerves. And this time it hit way too close to home." said Han.

"I know. I think it's just his way. He is trying to set an example of peace and tolerance and as you said, giving people a chance to redeem themselves-as part of his role as Jedi Grandmaster. I think he is trying to follow the examples he believes wiser Grandmasters before him would've taken without having the benefit of being taught by any of them himself. I don't know. We just have to keep a watch out. He's doing his best I think." said Harry, trying to console Han and support Luke in general at the same time.

"I know. Thanks again Harry."

A/N:

-The areas in italics where Ahsoka is telling her story, are taken directly from the summary of Ahsoka Tano's life from her Wookieepedia page, modified for tense, at: [ starwars wikia com wiki Ahsoka_Tano ].


	29. Chapter 29

Note: This chapter is full of exposition and state of the empire stuff. If you are one of those that absolutely hates reading that and you think you are fine to continue forward with the story ignoring this, feel free to skip. Since I always hear -some- complaints about this, I thought I would give fair warning since this one is intentional.

Chapter 29

Timeframe: 2017 (30 ABY).

Harry was finally back home in the Avalon galaxy with some time (he hoped) to get some other things done. The Triangulo sector was shaping up nicely, and his newly appointed Governor at Gerrenthum, Sue Entwhistle nee Li reported that everything was running smoothly as they continued to transition themselves into the local governments and economy. They would soon begin actually turning a surplus on their budget from local royalties, licenses, and taxes; and would begin developing a treasury reserve in the galactic standard credits used throughout Triangulum. While the region wasn't highly populated it was rich in certain valuable commodity exports, the trade in which were really picking up steam again since the war ended. Harry gave Sue a directive to root out any unfair labor practices, and especially slavery or other trafficking if they found it anywhere in their sector.

In keeping with tradition Harry tried to keep married couples among his Novum assigned together the best he could, so Sue's husband was promoted to Knight-Admiral and assigned command of the Imperial Knight Praxeum on Callos, with three full Knight-Carrier's and one-hundred ninety-two Knights in residence. Well, at least they were in the same galaxy. That is more than he could say for himself and Hermione half the time. As for Admiral Thomas, he was promoted to Military Governor of the Triangulo Sector at Triangulo, while his wife Doctor Thomas worked at Callos, so they didn't have it any better. And he hoped that no one reminded Admiral Longbottom and Doctor Longbottom of how far away from each other they work. Stargates were still a marvelous thing.

Therefore, with the new folks in Triangulo lobbying him for it and the security of their sector and infrastructure of their colonies and space there well in hand. Harry finally agreed to allow them to install secure stargate facilities at their three main complexes in Callos, Gerrenthum, and Triangulo in order for all his people to get around conveniently. All inter-galactic traffic still had to go through a second hop at Triangulo though, to keep a lock on that security. Everything that went through a gate out of the galaxy was scanned for contraband, stowaways, midichlorians, and anything else with a force energy signature.

This year also began the first year for the children of the Novum, Harry and Hermione's son Prince James included, that were going to be the first class of the new Alteran Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Novum children since age six all attended a structured elementary and junior secondary school education which included basic knowledge of all three: Alteran, Wizard, and a survey of Earth Muggle arts and sciences. Now beginning at age thirteen, they would attend a secondary school designed for Alterans specifically, which is the functional equivalent of the Academy of Advanced Magic that is dedicated to students coming from a wizarding world education, only a bit more of a concentrated curriculum since these children were raised from day one as Alterans and ready to begin it at age thirteen. The graduates of both Academy's were thereafter, albeit beginning at different average ages, eligible to enter the Graduate Academy at Atlantis and/or Starfleet Academy at Eskal, and a variety of other specialized Academy's throughout the Empire focused on finishing school for a variety of licensed graduate professions. As the population grew and spread out to all of their new colonies, they would open up new schools and Academy's everywhere they needed to.

After Harry had some vacation and down time with Hermione and their kids, he discussed with her plans to hold an Imperial Council to assess the state of the Empire and potentially make a few changes to right-size the distribution of forces and other assets, including people. As well as take care of a number of other long over-due tasks.

They had finally finished a full surveillance and study of all fifty-four galaxies in their local group, including the satellite galaxies of each. They had either claimed all the unclaimed space they wanted to, started colonies where they wanted to expand and conduct trade, or quarantined ones either for strategic or safety reasons. And they had either liberated or assimilated all the worlds that needed them. The rest were either safely in their sphere of influence with good relations with them, or in the case of Triangulum, they had their foothold and plenty of time to explore and grow by attrition in that galaxy.

They had no plans to expand by conquering anyone (although some factions in Triangulum were testing Harry's patience), but mostly they needed to be on the guard for anyone wanting to conquer them, or to generally de-stabilize the security of their territory or their protectorates. And Harry suspected that with the chaotic nature of the Triangulum galaxy and its always shifting political landscape that there would be opportunities in the future to 'assimilate' or 'annex' other worlds there that may choose during future conflicts to jump from their normal two choices of patrons, to the AE to get stability and protection.

That having been said. Now that he believed he had their own backyard somewhat in order (their local group of galaxies, or what they will refer to from then on as the 'Avalon Local Group') and had at least an idea of what lurked behind every corner or at least where the corners were; he wanted to finally consider the issue of the Ori. For the AE, they are the five hundred pound gorilla who can match them in technology and whom they know wanted to see them gone.

One of the big questions on the table for the conference would be, should they seek the Ori out preemptively and deal with them, or be content to wait until they finally come for them?

...

One month later, Harry and Hermione's Imperial Council gathered at Atlantis. What better place was there than to gather at their ancestral home for these events? They summoned their original closest Novum friends, the top seventy-two which included themselves, of the club they first formed at Hogwarts when they were still attending. This would also be a reunion of sorts because many of those people hadn't seen each other in a good while. So, the conference would last four days so that they had time for people to mingle and get caught up. Have a few parties. Everyone would meet each other's kids, and so forth.

Of course it also meant that for a few days most of the top positions throughout the Empire were turned over to assistants and running on auto for a while. Because that gathering included most of their major Civilian and Military sector Governors, Admirals both of the fleet and of the Imperial Knights, Scientists, Ambassadors, Commanders, Heads of various departments and Academies, so on and so forth.

But, Harry was glad for this. Because finally, ever since he first started on this path for himself back when he was a kid, he was now surrounded by people who were educated as Alterans, had seen the galaxy for themselves, and had been around a bit now with a variety, breadth and depth of inter-galactic experiences. Now, he could rely upon the counsel and help of other people he knew and trusted. (If you want a refresher on who is who and where they are currently assigned, what their titles are, who is married to who and so on, see the A/N).

...

First, Harry had Adam brief the full Council on a high-level summary of key meta-statistics of the Three Main Inter-Galactic (Cluster) Sectors, and the Empire on the whole, which would level-set everyone for what he wanted to announce and their discussions to follow.

"As of the start of twenty-seventeen, the Avalon galaxy colonies have expanded from the original seventy-five to four hundred Novah colonies consisting of the worlds and outposts liberated from the Goa'uld at the formation of the Empire, to a total of nineteen hundred integrated Novah/Novum colonies, continuing to grow on schedule at one hundred new colonies per year. The population of Avalon recently passed twelve billion. This includes the populations of all our colonies and outposts in all the other galaxies that are not part of the Furling or Triangulo cluster sectors, which are by definition governed by the Avalon cluster sector. Half of which are not citizens of the empire directly, speaking of Earth, but we do however count them in our sphere of influence and part of our protectorate." said Adam.

"The Furling sector, organized as an economic cooperative and as a member state of the Empire, is comprised of the three pre-existing heavily populated galaxies of the former Shi'ar empire plus the war-ravaged but rebuilding LMC and Andromeda galaxies that are assigned to that sector. It consists of ten thousand five hundred populated worlds and one thousand discrete species made up of a wide variety of mostly compatible sub-genus of humans, with a total population of twenty-two billion." said Adam.

"For those who were not aware, the Emperor asked me to make sure you know that all of those humanoid races were descended from the same ancient Earth humans that you were, only they experienced heavy genetic experimentation by another species that transplanted them about a million years ago, much as the Goa'uld had done more recently in this galaxy, which has resulted in so many diverse sub-genus of the species. He encourages you to make the journey sometime and that you would be surprised at the most amazing amount of diverse human-like species. Most of whom are quite friendly and open to us." said Adam.

Governor Finch-Fletchley nodded in appreciation to Harry, knowing that he had Adam add some words to that effect to his opening briefing; at her request.

"The newly acquired Triangulo sector is comprised of seventeen hundred worlds, and a population of twelve billion. Over two-thirds of which are humans native to the Triangulum galaxy who immigrated there from elsewhere in the galaxy in the past thousand years or so and the rest made up of over thirty other species native to that galaxy. The galaxy still remains under military quarantine for travel as part of a top secret program being led there directly by the Emperor. However, with his permission, the merchant marine has begun fielding ordinary supply and trade shipment routes to and from it supervised by Governor Entwhistle and Admiral Thomas." said Adam.

"Of key interest to note is that we occupy a very small territory in that galaxy, especially in relation to the amount of population we've taken responsibility for. The total population of that galaxy consists of millions of heavily populated worlds, tens of millions of other outposts and resource planets, and a total population of ten quadrillion beings. These numbers are staggering and is one of the reasons our travel to and from that galaxy will be heavily restricted and monitored for the foreseeable future. We have prepared a data packet that will be distributed to each of you at the end of today's meeting that will contain a full debrief on the state of the Triangulum galaxy and an unclassified summary of our main mission there." said Adam.

"Therefore in summary, the Empire has grown since nineteen ninety-eight from the original liberation of the Novah from the Goa'uld, to within the past eighteen years to include, either directly claimed by the Empire or within our direct sphere of influence or protection, fifty-three of the fifty-four galaxies in the Avalon Local Group of Galaxies, with of course our new foothold in the vastly most developed and populated, fifty-fourth galaxy, Triangulum." said Adam.

"In total our responsibility for general welfare and security consists of a population of over forty-six billion beings across these territories, and direct control and presence on fourteen-thousand one-hundred star systems or planets." said Adam.

"Our main military resources consist of a total five hundred Liberator-class Carrier-Battleship's divided into twenty fleets of twenty-four plus their combined three thousand Destiny-class escorts. Plus another forty-three thousand Destiny-class Battle-Cruisers assigned to individual planetary defense, patrol, and security assignments. This incorporates the current standard of three Destiny-class Battle-Cruisers detached to every protected star system or planet, on average. Plus, all the related fleet-detached Marine divisions; a large standing Army of an additional one million based primarily at Eskal, and two million reservists throughout the Empire; backed by an equal number of HFR warriors. And finally, all planets, colonies, and outposts in the Empire are protected by one of our standard self-healing satellite defense and communications nets." said Adam.

"In conclusion, this is the status of our Emperor's primary objective for all of this, which is to revitalize and regrow the Alteran civilization itself. Since beginning with our Emperor's personal mission in the early nineteen-ninety's, until now, including the seven-hundred twelve original Lanteans we rescued along the way; our population has grown to four-thousand three-hundred eighty-seven Novum and Alteran souls, including the children. We have trained and fielded seven-hundred twenty-five Imperial Knights. There are currently eleven-hundred marriages. We enroll and graduate five hundred new Novum at the Academy of Advanced Magic each year. And as of last month, began the first ever class at our new Alteran Academy of Arts and Sciences to teach our young people, which in four years will yield the beginning of a new age of the first of the new-born Alterans, freshly educated, entering into professions and beginning to start families of their own." concluded Adam.

...

At the end of Adam's little speech delivering the state of the Empire to the Council the room broke out in a standing ovation and loud applause and congratulations to Harry and Hermione. This went on for over twenty minutes. Harry let it go on because he wanted everyone not to see what he had accomplished in that time, but to recognize what all of them together had accomplished in that time-and where it was going.

Adam retreated from the stage, Harry took the podium and motioned for everyone to calm down.

"Thank you everyone. Really, thank you very much. First, I want you to understand the way I look at this. This isn't something I myself did. Sure, I did some stuff on my own the first few years. But, all of this that you just heard is stuff that all of you have done since then. So, I want to thank you. Really, from the bottom of my heart. You, who were the first to give me and my message and my dream a chance back when we were still in school...euhm...cough." said Harry, pausing to choke up a little bit. [...]

Then he motioned for Hermione to join him on stage, which she did. Then he grabbed her gently for a deep kiss and said, "Starting with you sweetheart. You helped the new kid who literally dropped in from outer space with his strange ways and crazy ideas make all these new friends. Thank you for your friendship, your faith in me and your love." Hermione then returned the favor with tears in her eyes, hugged and kissed him back. But, she didn't know what to say so she just stood there by his side, with one arm around him. He continued.

Or at least he was about to when, her mum and dad who were in the audience, as well as their kids also all teared up and started clapping. Beginning a new round of applause.

After another effort to get everyone to calm back down, which included a bunch of 'awe's' from many of the ladies in the audience, he started again.

"Most people don't know my full story about how I came to be in the position I was in at the time, but over time I shared most of that with all of you lot. Because, as the first group that I got to know personally through all of that, I grew closest to you all and I wanted you to understand. So, truly I appreciate it." He paused for a moment.

"I think what we've done here is a good thing. What we are doing is good. I mean just the basic idea that we discovered the ancient legacy of our race, which almost lost its way forever. I always thought what a terrible shame that would be, and I'm glad that you all agreed with me." said Harry.

Which was met with some applause. Harry joined in, applauding his friends, for choosing this life to follow him.

"So, here we are. In the course of building everything we needed to fulfill our main mission, we also explored and met many knew worlds across many new galaxies. We've helped liberate, save, or protect other people. We've helped restore order and answered the call for guidance, security, and protection from others. I'm proud of what we have done and what we are doing." said Harry.

"So, I wanted to get all us together again, just to talk. To see if we are still on the same page. Are we going in the direction that we all agree on or at least have a good consensus that we should go in? One of things I did was ensure that we fully explored our local group of galaxies, and sowed colonies where it made sense. Entered into relationships for trade and other exchange where it makes sense." said Harry.

"But, I primarily did all that so that we would have some reason to feel secure in our local group here in an inter-galactic, universal sense. To make sure there weren't any unwelcome surprises lurking right around the corner. I didn't want us to get too secure not knowing what was in the attic, the basement, and the shed of the used house we just bought. But, now I have some new questions for us to consider." said Harry.

"Should we be satisfied with the exploration we have done, and the colonization and room for expansion we have (which is tremendous by the way), in our current territories? Or, should we continue to explore new galaxies, possibly meet more new species, possibly start colonies even further away from home? That is one question I would like your input on these next few days." said Harry.

"Another is this. In a sense I had us over-build in our large ship-building campaign. But, that was all toward the thought that we still didn't know what was next around the corner. The new Liberator-class which is the back-bone of our fleet now and our ability to project power is fantastic and I think we so far have built just the right number of them." said Harry.

"Our Destiny-class Battle-Cruisers on the other hand are currently at a number consisting of an average of three vessels per every occupied star system or planet that we have or that we have taken under our protection. Now of course we have tens of millions more habitable planets in our territory that we can expand into over time and those will need protection too. But, I believe that will happen organically, a bit at a time. That the main push to see that done at necessary scale is already being done here at home." said Harry.

"Now, the Destiny-class is no derelict ready for the dust-heap. Today, each one still possesses the shielding capacity and raw energy output of the city of Atlantis possessing three ZPMs each, and a scaled down capability of almost all the great mother city's capabilities for creation and destruction. I designed her myself so I should know. So, I don't say this lightly when I say that I am announcing effective immediately a moratorium on new building of Destiny-class for the foreseeable future." said Harry.

"The primary reason being, we have far too many of them for our needs. Therefore, over time and by attrition, we will let our average number of Destiny-class drop from three to one per occupied or protected planet. With the numbers we have now, even with that, we can always muster thousands in any one sector at any one time to perform rapid response in hot spots when we need it-and that is if our Liberator-class fleets can't handle the job on their own." said Harry.

"In the meantime, we will design a new multi-purpose cruiser class and a smaller corvette-class for use as patrol craft, that will be ready to replace it when we do someday decide we need to resume building cruiser's or ships specifically for security patrols. A cruiser with certain additional capabilities that the size of the old Destiny-class hull plate just wasn't suited for, additional transport capacity being one. And a corvette that will use far less resources but still allow us to make a credible presence for security anywhere we need to be, that frankly the Destiny-class is over-kill for. But there will be plenty of time for that." said Harry.

"We will begin design and limited production on an as-needed basis several other utilitarian vessels that may be of use to us with so many galaxies to travel to and from now. One will likely be a resurgence of the old Gateship design, for exactly that purpose, traveling via ship through space gates. Which will also mean we would begin propagating space gates once again. I never liked the original Gateship myself because it is under-powered and doesn't have shields. I never got around to tinkering with that because I didn't see the need at the time." said Harry.

"Now, however I am beginning to see the need for more convenient non-military government, diplomatic, and civilian shuttle craft that are otherwise well protected. Another will be better ships based on Alteran technology for our merchant marine class than the old remodeled Al'kesh that they still primarily rely upon that are also stretched too thin now, including a class of heavier bulk cargo transports that I am told that we need." said Harry.

"That's about it for ships right now. Other than to say, if we do find ourselves in a major war and short on ships, we would primarily focus on building more of the Liberator-class initially. Now, for a few general and personnel announcements. Ambassador Ginny Creevey and Ambassador-at-Large Susan Bones will be swapping assignments, with Ambassador Creevey following her husband, newly appointed Civilian Administrator for the Leviathan's civilian districts, Colin Creevey. With Susan moving to assume Ginny's role as Ambassador to the ICW, so that she can match wits with her aunt who was recently appointed ICW Ambassador to us." said Harry, with a devilish smirk.

"And, I've heard from a number of people that with the recent moving of many key people from one assignment to another, that some are confused as to who is currently in charge of what and more practically from a political standpoint, when Hermione and I aren't around, who's direction or orders does one follow. Apparently some of this confusion has been contributed to by myself and Hermione, probably more by me-stepping into certain things on a whim when it appeared someone else would have it under control. As for that I will apologize a little bit, however I also remind you that when I feel the need I will continue to step in an over-ride decisions or call for actions on my own prerogatives." said Harry.

"I will add that everyone in this hall is welcome to contact me directly if any confusion is created by the Royal Family. I think I know and trust you all well enough that you've earned that right. Most of you already do that, but I think a few of you may have been afraid to approach us about such things. Please don't. You all are our trusted eyes and ears throughout the Empire. The last thing that Hermione and I want to do is to be the cause of confusion." said Harry.

"That being said, to make sure that everyone is current, here is a summary and a reminder of the people that are in which positions of the highest authority. A couple of these are recent moves such as with the Triangulo Cluster Sector and the staffing of the Leviathan." said Harry.

"First of course is myself and Hermione. As Emperor and Empress we have also taken on duties as ex officio Grand Admiral in my case, and in Hermione's case, she is ex officio Prime Minister. In that way we have essentially divided up the day-to-day ruling leadership of the military and foreign affairs, and civilian and domestic affairs, respectively. So hopefully that will help guide you in the right direction if your concerns are firmly in one matter or the other." said Harry.

"Next, in a dotted line from the two of us is, Knight Admiral Stewart Ackerly and his command of sixty-four Knights which serve as the Imperial Guard. They are responsible for the personal day-to-day security and protection of each member of the Royal Family." said Harry.

"Next, there are mine and Hermione's personal staff serving at the Capitol Atlantis or deployed with us on Leviathan; and following us around to assist us on missions as necessary: Prime Herald Adam (my personal assistant), Leviathan Fleet Admiral Jimmy Peakes, Leviathan Knight Admiral Romilda Vane, Leviathan Civilian Administrator Colin Creevey, and Leviathan Ambassador-at-Large Ginny Creevey." said Harry.

"Finally, for the top positions in each of the three Inter-Galactic (Cluster) Sectors, which combined make up our Imperial High Council, are the following six Councilors:"

"For the Avalon Cluster Sector - Nigel Wolpert, Civilian Governor; and Admiral Natalie McDonald, Military Governor. "

"For the Furling Cluster Sector - Hannah Finch-Fletchley, Civilian Governor; and Admiral Longbottom, Military Governor."

"For the Triangulo Cluster Sector - Sue Entwhistle, Civilian Governor; and Admiral Thomas, Military Governor."

"As always, local planetary governors continue to be elected by their local population and serve on their respective Cluster Sector Governor's Imperial People's Council, with local military governors assigned as necessary by the Cluster Sector Governor. And sometimes planetary governor's might be asked to perform other duties as assigned, for example: Sector Governor Teal'c of Chulak who is also overseeing the Aschen Rehabilitation Program and our Aschen Prison Planet." said Harry.

"I hope that clarifies some of the confusion we have caused." said Harry.

Harry paused for some polite applause signally that the room understood him at least.

"And the following is a major announcement regarding our religious caste in the Avalon Cluster Sector. From the start of our liberation of Jaffa from the Goa'uld we made gradual reforms and improved the position of religion in the lives of the displaced people of Avalon. We took care to do this gradually so as to not shock the masses and the culture by expecting them to suddenly accept a new belief system or to abolish millennia of traditions overnight. However, now that the truth of the old Goa'uld religions has been generally accepted by all. The government is severing all formal ties with the Religious Caste, and instituting Freedom of Religion and Freedom from Religion, as guaranteed rights of every citizen. No religious dogma or sectarian order may supersede Alteran law. If there is a discrepancy between the two, the law is supreme, and such disputes over that will be settled by the High Court, currently administered by the Nox." said Harry.

This was met by greater applause, as many from the civilian side had begun lobbying up the chain to the High Council for this move, to make it official.

"Now then, the only other major new question I came to open to the Council to deliberate with me the next few days is the question of the Ori. The premise is simple and the question is simple. The premise is that we know that scientifically and technologically they are a match for us and that they are still out there. And if nothing has changed on their end they would like to put an end to us as they have tried a couple times before with our ancestors." said Harry.

"The question is, do we wait for them to finally discover that we are out here and come for us, or do we preemptively go after them? No need to shout out answers to this right now. We will discuss this over the next couple days, deliberate on the opinions and possibly debate it. Then I will take a vote from you on the final day to see where the consensus stands on the issue. Likewise, even though this is the only major issue I came to bring to your attention and request your counsel on this week; the floor will be opened this week for any of you to pose other issues and concerns you would like this body to deliberate and for Hermione and I to decide upon while we are all gathered." said Harry.

"With all of that said. Since I do not want to leave you on a down note." said Harry.

"I have one final major announcement before we can all break to eat and mingle, and hopefully this one is more enjoyable for everyone. It is this. I know that since I first announced the intent to utilize noble titles that would serve as a hierarchy in our noble court, we haven't done much with it-other than all Novum being granted ennoblement as Knights, and a few Novah here and there got minor titles in recognition of their contributions. Well, today we begin setting this straight. Or that is tomorrow, officially. Today I am just announcing it." said Harry.

"Tomorrow we will do a formal ceremony wherein you will be announced to the Empress and I, and we will formally raise you and ennoble you with new earned hereditary titles. For now, I wish simply to announce what we are doing. For the six members of our high council, from tomorrow you will be appointed as Marquis/ Marquess as fitting your station as Councilors in the Imperial High Council. For the remaining people who were among our founding organizations original 'top ten' and the first new 'top ten' that immediately followed our graduation, without whom the whole thing could have fallen apart in our absence; as well as the six that graduated ahead of us, you will all be appointed as Earl/ Count/ Countess. Everyone else who was one of the remaining original fifty after our graduation, and now I believe I have successfully identified everyone formally called to this Council, you each will be appointed Baron's, in the Royal Court." concluded Harry.

The crowd sensing the end of that announcement erupted with another standing ovation and appreciative applause.

"Congratulations everyone. Let's go have dinner and celebrate, we'll pick this work back up tomorrow." concluded Harry.

A/N:

-Here is the status of people from Harry's original club of 72. This will be missing some names, it is not comprehensive. That is because I haven't bothered to actually name every single one of them nor use every single one of them in the story.

Sue Entwhistle nee Li - Civilian Governor of the Triangulo Sector at Gerrenthum, married to Kevin Entwhistle - Knight-Admiral, Commander of Praxeum on Callos.

Dean Thomas - Admiral and Military Governor of the Triangulo Sector at Triangulo, married to Parvati Thomas - Doctor, Head of Force Genetics Research at the IK Praxeum on Callos.

Luna Longbottom nee Lovegood - Doctor, Head of Xeno-Zoology at Ramius, married to Neville Longbottom, Admiral and Military Governor of the Furling Sector at Chandilar. (also 3 Knight-Carriers detached to Chandilar).

Hannah Finch-Fletchley nee Abbott as Civilian Governor of the Furling Sector, married to Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Ernie MacMillan - Knight-Commander, M'Kraan Nexus Royal Guard, detached to Furling Eldest. (1 Knight-Carrier)

Padma Finnegan nee Patil - Professor of Alteran Language, Academy of Advanced Magic, married to Seamus Finnegan - Professor of Self-Study, Academy of Advanced Magic

Ginny Creevey nee Weasley - Ambassador-at-Large, Leviathan, England, married to Colin Creevey, Civilian Administrator, Leviathan.

Dennis Creevey - Knight-Admiral, Citadel at Natania (3 Knight-Carriers currently)

Stewart Ackerly - Knight-Commander, Royal Family, Imperial Guard (1 Knight-Carrier)

Jimmy Peakes - Admiral, Leviathan, daughter fleet (8 Liberator's, 48 Destiny's)

Romilda Vane - Knight-Admiral, Leviathan (3 Knight-Carriers currently)

Terry Boot - Headmaster, Advanced Academy of Magic, Professor of Wandless Magic, married to Lisa Boot nee Turpin - Deputy Headmistress, Professor of Mind-Arts

George Weasley - Co-Chief Engineer of the Trans-hub subspace network, married to Angelina Johnson - Ambassador, Head of Trans-hub subspace Diplomatic Corps

Fred Weasley - Co-Chief Engineer of the Trans-hub subspace network, married to Alicia Johnson - Head Administrator of Trans-hub subspace Network

Lee Jordan - Ambassador to EarthGov, married to Katie Jordan nee Bell - Co-Head Starship Research & Design (her partner is Alura-El nee In-Zee - Co-Head Starship Research & Design, just for reminder)

Rose Zeller - Headmistress of Alteran Academy of Arts and Sciences

Orla Quirke - City Administrator, Atlantis.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Timeframe: 2017 (30 ABY), continued.

With the Council meeting concluded and it having gone well as expected, Harry and Hermione returned to their normal duties. They decided they would go after the Ori and they decided in regard to exploration that they would continue to explore outside of their group of galaxies, but only expand locally for now. They might create small outposts in distant galaxies if it were useful to continue an exploration or to exploit some rare and valuable resource or new discovery.

In the meantime however, Harry wanted to return to follow-up on his Force research project.

Harry's first stop after checking in and taking a tour of the progress of things on Triangulo, Callos, and their new sector capitol on Gerrenthum-was to the Praxeum on Callos to sit down with Doctor Thomas, Special Advisor Tano, and Knight-Admiral Entwhistle, to be briefed on their progress.

"How have you been Ahsoka?" asked Harry.

"Fine. I have been teaching the Imperial Knights about the Force and what I know of Jedi and Sith teaching and tactics. As well as working with Doctor Thomas, going over her previous work and together working on some more theories." said Ahsoka.

"Good. I'm sorry I've been away for so long since getting you settled in here. But, there is a lot of work to running an empire. I can't spend all of my time on personal projects. But, I should have some time dedicated to this for a while. I hope after I get briefed on the status here that we can plan some expeditions to do some scouting around like we discussed last time." said Harry.

"That's fine. I've had a good time getting settled in. It's fun teaching what I know. Even if I never actually completed training officially myself." said Ahsoka.

"Great. Alright Doctor, why don't you get us started on what you found so far." said Harry.

"I think we've made a number of useful observations." said Doctor Thomas.

"One is that I can confirm that the animal life in this galaxy did begin developing a stable cellular mutation between one and two million years ago, that is what provides symbiotic support for the midichlorians in their cells. That confirms one of your hypothesis." said Doctor Thomas.

"Another is that the midichlorians themselves are not sentient, they are rather primal, driven purely by instinct. So you don't have to worry about saying or doing certain things in front of people who simply have midichlorians in their bodies with an idea that they could be acting, reacting, or even purposely communicating that information elsewhere. So that rules out that hypothesis. However it doesn't rule out the associated hypothesis that external stimuli or access to someone's midichlorians could be used to influence the individual's behavior to do such things." said Doctor Thomas.

"Yes, I see your point of course, but that is an important distinction Doctor. Thank you, please continue." replied Harry.

"Right. The other thing is that I have developed a prototype waveform that can completely dampen an individual's access to the force, blocking them off from it both to stop them from accessing it themselves or to protect them from foreign external stimuli that might be meant to influence or control them." said Doctor Thomas.

"Interesting. Have you tested that yet?" asked Harry.

"I have, with Ahsoka's help. She volunteered to be the guinea pig for this. Right now it is just a wave we transmit from a machine. It works. But, we are working on trying to miniaturize it so that an individual could wear a device that would make it permanent or something they can easily put on and take off." said Doctor Thomas.

"That is good. Please contact Leviathan and leverage our scientists there to help you with that. That could be very useful. What do you think of this Ahsoka? Does this sort of thing offend you?" said Harry.

"Not at all. I want to be cut off from external stimuli by the force. Of course, I can't speak for other force adepts. But, I would imagine that if someday you could prove to them that they are being unnaturally and malevolently influenced by it, some might change their mind." said Ahsoka.

"Okay then. We'll keep working on this." said Harry.

"Any more Doctor?" asked Harry.

"Yes. So, we did some experiments to see if it would be hypothetically possible to provide some kind of therapy to remove this midichlorian symbiosis from their living cells. But, so far the answer is that anything like that would just kill the person so treated. Likewise so far research into potentially altering a person's reproductive genome to prevent it from reoccurring in their offspring, with an idea toward evolving them out of this is also negative. The problem is that it is tied to all of their chromosomes except two. There is no way to undo this without effectively destroying the genome entirely." said Doctor Thomas.

"Naturally, the Dakara wave could do it, but well... that is not going to help anyone obviously. You understand what I mean." said Doctor Thomas.

"I do. Let's not get an further into any of that kind of talk." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." replied Doctor Thomas.

"How about the possibility of either increasing or decreasing the level of midichlorians per cell in a persons body? Could such a therapy be devised that could in that way eliminate the sensitivity to the force, or depending on your philosophy, increase one's sensitivity and power in the force?" asked Harry.

"We have not explored that question yet. I will add that to our research. I think it may be possible. Then how feasible it is we'll have to see. It could take a lifetime of therapy to make that much difference, which in some ways really defeats the point. But, that is just off the top of my head spit-balling the conventional ways we would do that. I will look into it." said Doctor Thomas.

"Good. Now what about the question that Ahsoka and I posed to you when I first introduced you. Do you think its in any way possible that midichlorians could have conceived someone such as Anakin Skywalker was believed to have been? We know from history that it was claimed he had a count of twenty-thousand midichlorians per cell. What have you learned about that?" asked Harry.

"Hmm." began Doctor Thomas. "I've had limited time to look into it. But, I don't believe that midichlorians by themselves would have conceived anything because I have not seen any evidence of their having sentience of their own, which we have already ruled out." said Doctor Thomas.

"However, that doesn't rule out an external source manipulating the amount of midichlorians in an in vitro fertilized ovum and manipulating the RNA to produce that result. I said I have no idea how to eliminate it entirely through such methods, because the basic need for these midichlorians is already too deeply imprinted. However, using such a method to increase an offspring's amount of them would be easy enough to do." said Doctor Thomas.

"You asked me a minute ago if we could produce such an effect with therapy. That would be the first avenue I'd research and then to see where I could develop it from there." said Doctor Thomas.

"So, it really doesn't rule out that some outside source might have simply come along and performed an in vitro fertilization of Shmi Skywalker to produce exactly that effect?" asked Harry.

"No, it doesn't. We'd have to test it to see if that would work with midichlorians, for one thing we'd need to develop a way to extract, keep alive, and then implant midichlorians from other living cells to provide a source for the basic implanted material. All the other normal things need to work such as compatibility, rejection and so forth. But, assuming that midichlorians can be affected that way, we could do it easily enough with our science." said Doctor Thomas.

"Interesting. Well, go ahead and research it. Ahsoka, I don't want you volunteering to test any of these therapies. Let's hold off on that level of work until we see an imminent need for it, then perhaps we can work with the Jedi order to see if they still want to continue working with us on this after they see exactly why we've been studying it. If so, they would be able to find suitable volunteers much easier than we could." said Harry.

"Right now we are just researching to gain all the knowledge we can and considering possibilities. We might find a more elegant way to prevent this from being a problem for all beings on an entirely different playing field." said Harry.

"Very well, sir. Understood." said Doctor Thomas.

...

"Admiral, anything you want to add since having Ahsoka around to pick her brain?" asked Harry.

"Yes, sir. She has helped us develop a basic written curriculum of study of many of the Jedi tenets, and some of what she knows about Sith from what she was taught and observed." said Admiral Entwhistle.

"Since she's living here with us, we've enlisted her as a guest lecturer, so she is currently teaching that curriculum to our Knights, and we are working with her to learn about Jedi and Sith to an extent, including some of their fighting katas and techniques. She was most impressed to see that a lightsaber cannot damage our armor." said Admiral Entwhistle.

"I think I am more impressed that you can summon them directly onto your body and dismiss them just as easily with a mere thought. And that you say it and your weapons are stored in a personal pocket dimension unique to each of your Knights that is with them wherever they go. I stand by what I said to you before Harry. This stuff is like magic and you people are like wizards or something." said Ahsoka.

All three, Harry, Parvati, and Kevin just sat there making shallow nods of their heads and Harry said, "Yeah, or something. Maybe someday I'll be able to give you a better explanation of all that."

"Okay, thanks folks. Doctor, I will meet with you separately later on to go over a set of talking points about which of these observations I think we can safely share with the Jedi Order right now. We do owe them something back on this and there are a few things that will be good for them to know." said Harry.

"For one, I think it is fair to say that our people can train and work alongside them just fine without us being unusually affected by their midichlorians. Which is one thing we wanted to rule out. I think they will be glad to hear that."

"As for you Ahsoka and you Admiral, I am preparing two initiatives that will involve both of you and some of the Knights." said Harry.

"So, let's allow the good Doctor to get back to work and go off-line and discuss those plans." said Harry.

...

They sat and met to go over Harry's plans. The first thing was to follow-up on his and Ahsoka's last discussion. They would take one of the Knight-Carrier's cloaked as usual, to investigate the location of the Mortis monolith and verify if they could or could not find or contact the Ones. If not, they will accept for now the belief that they truly did die on that day of Ahsoka's mission there with her masters.

Following that and assuming that yields no fruit, they would proceed to perform a stealth reconnaissance of the other key locations and assets: Centerpoint Station, Kessel, and Sinkhole Station in the Maw. At this time they would not disembark and investigate those locations in person. The first trip would be for surveillance, scans, updating star maps, etc.

...

Harry, Ahsoka, and Admiral Entwhistle, along with sixty-four Imperial Knights departed aboard one of their Knight-Carriers en route to the Chrelythiumn system in wild space, grid coordinates K-2, which is to the galactic north of Bastion and Imperial Remnant space.

When they arrived where Ahsoka thought they should be able to find it, if it still existed-they found nothing. They scanned every known modern and ancient Alteran and Lantean frequencies. They searched for hidden pocket dimensions, which was Harry's first guess. Nothing. They scanned for anything and everything else. Nothing.

"Hmm. Well, at least we can say we followed up and tried. Admiral, place a cloaked social research satellite here and link it back to HQ. We'll just keep a watch on this sector from now on." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." replied Admiral Entwhistle.

"Very well, when you are ready, let's go scout out the first location. Centerpoint Station." said Harry.

...

When they arrived at the twin worlds, Talus and Tralus in the Correlian system, Harry exclaimed. "Whoa. That thing is big. I haven't built anything that big yet. Need to add that to my bucket list I guess."

"Well, I mean. I don't have any need to use the energy created by the gravity wells of two planets to power a hyperspace tractor beam over a distance of almost half the width of the galaxy, but still." said Harry.

"Anyway, Admiral scan that station from pillar to post." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." said Admiral Entwhistle.

"History tells us that the station was used as a colony called Hollowtown for a long time until in 18 ABY when the Corellian's led by none other than Thracken Sal-Solo figured out how to use it as a weapon. Man, I'm getting tired of seeing that guys name come up." Harry said with a frown.

"Then later the Sacorrian Triad incinerated Hollowtown when they fired it up to supernova a star. Didn't they know that were living and sleeping in the middle of the reaction chamber of an artificial-star powered generator?" said Harry.

"Sir, scans came back negative. There are no life forms present at the moment. All indications are that it is still operating within default parameters. Although we can tell where it has been tampered with. The main computer has always set the system back to default operating conditions after." said Admiral Entwhistle.

"Good. Admiral, assemble your away team and we will beam down to the main command deck."

...

Harry, Ahsoka, and Admiral Entwhistle accompanied by a dozen Imperial Knights beamed into the command deck of Centerpoint Station. The place was very dusty. No one had been in there for eons. Whenever the Corellian's or others misused the station, they were doing it by fooling with auxiliary control consoles and other access points. This room was still sealed and Harry had every intention of it remaining that way. The people who intruded on this station barely knew any of it's real secrets and probably didn't even know the room existed.

Harry accessed the station's main computer and took control of it. Locked out all auxiliary control so that the station programming and control mechanisms could not be operated from anywhere except the command deck.

He then installed a coded sub-space relay that would link the auxiliary status circuits to HQ, so they could always maintain full status monitoring of the station from then on; including keeping track of any time any other life forms boarded the station and where they'd been.

He was sorely tempted to place a shield cocoon around the entire station and simply claim it and control it overtly from then on. But, that would have to wait. He would play some political cards first.

"We're all done here. Let's head back to the ship, deploy a cloaked social research satellite, and then on to our next destination." said Harry.

...

When they arrived in orbit of Kessel, they found what they had been expecting. A thriving spice mining business that Harry knew was co-owned by General Lando Calrissian and his business partner Nien Nunb.

There was no need to go to the surface. They just needed to scan the machines at the heart of the planetoid. They confirmed that the machine was still running and monitoring the galaxy's gravity wells and the status of the artificial black holes in the Maw, and the automated drones were still doing their jobs. The spice mining operation seemed to be getting too efficient. Harry knew that what these people called spice, the byproducts of the energy-spiders; was just part of the artificially created bio-mechanical ecosystem created by the Celestials to power the automated drones and the machine, through the drones consumption of the midichlorian doped glitterstim. The energy spiders were capable of converting quantities of midichlorians that they continually absorbed from their proximity to the Maw and the fonts of power. Harry's concern was that the mining would grow so far as to destroy too much of the energy spider habitat, thus killing off the power source to the machine. And if these people mined deep enough they would discover he machine and the drones and then who knew what would happen.

He found everything to be as he suspected and had the Admiral deploy a cloaked social research satellite to keep tabs on this place as well. When he got back, it would be time to make contact with Calrissian through their mutual friend.

...

Next, the tricky part was navigating the Maw to find Sinkhole Station.

"Admiral, access the top secret file on our location for Sinkhole station in the Maw, near the Kessel system; and get us there...safely. Black hole protocols are in effect."

"Yes, sir." said Admiral Entwhistle.

When they arrived at the Maw Nebulae scanners detected dozens of black holes in relatively close proximity centering on a lone planet just appearing to sit there in the middle of nowhere.

"That, is our prison Ahsoka. That is a place we do not want to go until we are ready. We are very close now to the malevolent power's influence, so let me know if you sense anything different from the force while you are here. Right now we are just going to investigate the station." said Harry.

"Admiral get us scans of that station and place a cloaked social research satellite around it." said Harry.

"Yes, sir. Sir, scans have picked up several life signs in the facility, all read as force sensitive's. Other than that, the systems seem to still be working as expected." said Admiral Entwhistle.

Harry stood there silently for a moment pondering, what in the world force sensitive's would be doing way out here? And what would they be doing on that station? This entire Maw is a psychic and physics disaster perpetually in motion. Why would anyone come here? This is a dangerous place especially for force sensitive's to hang out. It was too soon for him to get overtly involved, so they would just monitor the situation. Maybe when he got a chance to talk to Luke about this place, if they were his people he could tell him what they had been doing there.

"Everything is set, sir. Anything else while we're here?" asked Admiral Entwhistle.

Harry really wanted to beam into that place and take control of it, the same as he did with its big brother. But he didn't want to risk exposing himself to the Maw's influence, nor did he want to risk being discovered by those already on the station. He did not have enough information yet to place himself in that much risk and he wouldn't risk Ahsoka further by staying there any longer.

"No. Go ahead and take us out, and stop by that re-built Maw Installation that General Calrissian called Shelter on the way." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." said Admiral Entwhistle.

At the Shelter, formerly known as Grand Moff Tarkin's Secret Maw Installation and former home to Admiral Natasi Daala and her Fleet.

All that was left of it now is the bits that General Calrissian cobbled back together from the wreckage of the original stations destruction. It was basically an asteroid with a living module, a power core, and a rudimentary defense system. It was probably a good idea the Jedi didn't send their kids here instead of to Callos. You could knock this place over with a single shot from a fighter. One of their fighters anyway. Plus, it was still very close to the influence of Abeloth. These people just don't know what they are dealing with. He would have to change that.

Scans picked up no life signs, as it was currently abandoned and in lock down. Harry went ahead and placed another cloaked social research satellite in this place too, to keep tabs on it as well.

"Admiral, that will be it for this trip. Take us back to Callos. I have some calls to make." said Harry.

"Yes, sir." replied Admiral Entwhistle.

"Ahsoka, how do you feel? Did you sense anything while we were in the Maw?" asked Harry.

"I feel fine. I did sense something. Like a heaviness on my chest. Like I had gained weight or something while we were there. Strange, but it didn't really bother me." said Ahsoka.

"Yes, strange. Well, when we get back have Doctor Thomas check you and do a full workup and make sure you're alright." said Harry.

...

"Han, this is Harry." said Harry.

"Hey Harry old buddy. How's it going?" said Han.

"Good. Say, I called to ask a favor. Do you think you could arrange a meeting with me and your friend General Calrissian?" asked Harry.

"Sure. We were going to meet at Cloud City in a few days for some sabacc and to shoot the breeze. You can join us if you want." replied Han.

"That sounds good. I will see you guys there then." said Harry.

"Oh, what is this about anyway?" asked Han.

"I have a business proposition for him." said Harry.

"That is Lando's favorite type of meeting. I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." said Han.

"Great. I'll see you there then. Thanks." said Harry.

"No problem. See you then." replied Han.

...

That's one avenue.

Time to contact good old Master Skywalker to set up a meeting with him and get that tour of his new headquarters on Ossus that he promised.

...

A few days later Harry met with Han and Lando at Cloud City for drinks and they got a private room so Harry could talk to Lando about his proposition.

"So, Emperor Potter, Han tells me you have a business proposition for me." asked Lando.

"Yes. I have been looking to acquire some new real estate. I have a thing for misshapen planetoids. I know you have a successful spice mining business on the planet Kessel. But, I would like to know how much you would want for the whole planet, lock, stock and barrel." said Harry.

Lando spit out the drink he was taking a swallow of and Han just bust a gut laughing.

"Now, Lando old buddy, before you go off thinking he is full of bantha spit, remember. You always said you put an Emperor's ransom into that place. Well, he's an actual Emperor. I'll bet he can pay what you'd ask for it." said Han.

"Thanks Han, and here I thought I'd get a chance to lowball him first." said Harry.

"Ahem, well I see. Right, okay. Say I was interested in selling it, which I wasn't by the way. And I'd need to clear it with my partner beforehand. But, saying I was willing to let it go. For my part, I'd want at least ten million credits for it. But, my partner will want whatever he'd ask for his half." said Lando.

"And you see. For me this is just cred. I can take that and start another honest business elsewhere. But, he has managed to help employ a lot otherwise unemployed people from his Homeworld. So, it might be a tougher sell, err purchase, from him." said Lando.

"Good. So, do you want that in cred, or will you take gold for it? By my reckoning, using the high end of the range in your favor for current exchange rates, that would be one hundred fifty-thousand kilobars of pure gold." said Harry.

Lando turned to Han and said, "He's kidding right?"

"No, I don't think so. Emperor, remember?" said Han.

"Uhm, yes. K-k-kilobars will do." answered Lando, privately thinking all the taxes he would save on that transaction alone.

"Great. Then will you do the honors, and contact your partner for me and find out what he would want to make the deal? I'm sure I can make him whole for whatever he needs." said Harry.

"Sure, Emperor Potter." said Lando, as he got up to shake Harry's hand.

"Excellent. And you don't need to call me Emperor in private conversation. Just Harry is fine. Ask Han, I'm easygoing when I'm allowed to be." said Harry.

"Thanks Harry. I will contact him, I should have an answer in about a week I would think." said Lando. "So, will you stay and have some drinks with us?"

"Sure, let's see about another round." said Harry, motioning to the waitress.

...

A few days later he heard back from Luke who invited him to come to Ossus to get a tour of the new temple and discuss whatever is on his mind.

"Luke, thanks for seeing me. This is a nice place." said Harry.

"Thank you. I apologize again for not taking you up on your hospitality. But, on the whole the majority of the Order felt we should continue to make our permanent home within Republic or GA space. And Ossus itself has a long history for the Jedi." said Luke.

"Ah, it's no problem. I understand completely. Just remember, should your Order find itself in the cross-hairs of another major war again and if you should need any sanctuary, the offer remains open." said Harry.  
"Thank you." replied Luke.

"We've actually taken over the complex ourselves and expanded it. It's now home to our empire's secondary training and headquarters location for our Order of Imperial Knights. We now have almost two hundred Knights there training and providing a presence for themselves in the galaxy." said Harry.

"Great. I'm glad the whole thing was no imposition then." said Luke.

"Not at all." said Harry.

"So, what did you want to discuss?" asked Luke.

"Before I get into that I guess I can give you a preview, although Doctor Thomas will be annoyed for me jumping in front of the official report she's putting together. But, the conclusion of our study is that it is safe for our people and your people with midichlorians to train, work, and live together." said Harry.

"That's good news. I look forward to getting the full report then." said Luke.

"Yes. But the main thing I wanted to discuss with you is another avenue of research I have been doing, which has more to do with some of the ancient artifacts in the galaxy." said Harry.

"My people have traveled the stars for millions of years and as I've told you before we travel among many different galaxies not just this one and our home." said Harry.

"I have an understanding of certain things that I'm not sure that your civilization knows or perhaps it was lost in your history. At least I have been unable to ascertain from my reading of your history, that your society has ever understood these things. I speak of the large monolithic construction you call Centerpoint Station, in orbit of Talus and Tralus in the Correlian system." said Harry.

"I know your people know some things about it, but let me tell you some details I don't think you know. It's is one of a pair of stations that is designed to keep the Maw Nebulae and it's dozens of artificially created black holes, exactly where they are. It's partner station, which is considerably smaller is located in the Maw itself, relatively well hidden. Between the two of them they have been using a form of perpetual energy based on gravity wells and an artificial stellar reactor aboard Centerpoint Station, to maintain the Maw's construct." said Harry.

"Are you following me so far?" asked Harry.

"I am essentially. But, I had no idea your people were that old or that knowledgeable. It sounds like you have been around even longer than the ones we called the Celestials who legend says built that station." said Luke.

"That is true. I cannot tell you all about it right now, but I know of your Celestials. Someday I might be able to share with you all that I know about them." said Harry.

"But, the reason I have come to you instead of say, directly to the GA government or some other bureaucratic institution is that I think you will have more unique concern about the Maw and the rest of this than they will. At least I think you will understand the gravity of the situation, no pun intended." said Harry.

"I'm still listening, but I don't yet know, as you say, the gravity of the situation. What is all this about?" asked Luke.

"The two stations are where they are for the sole purpose of facilitating the main function they perform, which is to keep the artificially created Maw Nebulae with it's black holes concentrated and secure where they are. Which is situated and oriented to keep trapped in the Maw's center a lone planet that imprisons a terrible ancient evil Force entity that would make your worst Sith Lord seem like a youngling that just heard the word force for the first time." said Harry.

"I am going to level with you, that the reason I came to this galaxy in the first place is because of my knowledge of this entity's existence and its imprisonment in this galaxy. I came to check on it and make sure it's prison is still secure and if not, to shore it up and make certain it stays secure. Or, if I had found something worse, like if it had already escaped, I would be trying to deal with that." said Harry.

"The thing is that while it is still functioning perfectly fine from the inspections I've just conducted of it, there is risk of it failing in the future because people in this galaxy don't know what it truly is and are tampering with it. The former Hollowtown colony that lived there was camped out right in the middle of it's reactor chamber. They had no idea what they were in for. Then others have begun using it as weapon with not even five percent of the knowledge of the things purpose, how it works, or how to use it; and it was not designed to be weapon at all." said Harry.

"In my inspection of its partner in the Maw I detected several force sensitive people aboard the station, when no one at all should even know where it is or how to board it. And I can tell you that the Maw is a dangerous place to be near for any force sensitive's. You were lucky you didn't take Calrissian up on his offer to put your children there as a shelter. It is not a place to shelter force sensitive people. Lord knows what could have happened to them from long term exposure to the place. Which brings me back to the few I detected on the station. Were they agents of yours by any chance?" asked Harry.

"No. Not at all. In fact I was unaware that there was a second station in the Maw or that there was anything there that had anything at all to do with Centerpoint Station." said Luke.

"If all that you're telling me is true. This is all very troubling. Perhaps we should take this to the GA and try to figure out what to do about it on a large scale with the government's resources." said Luke.

"I have the resources and the knowledge covered, if you can help me ambiguously gain control of those stations in the name of the Avalon Empire or even in the name of Jedi Order if that is more politically correct. You can even tell your trusted contacts that we've discussed some serious dangers surrounding the Force in those places and that you wish to engage me to deal with them-and persuade them to just let me do it and for the military to stay out of it, other than with say, your personal supervision on behalf of the GA, or something along those lines." said Harry.

"But, I strongly recommend you don't tell anyone else the details that I've shared with you. All it would take is one self-serving enterprising young power seeker to go there thinking they were going to tap into this evil power for themselves. An heretofore unknown darkening Jedi for example, or another full-blown Sith hiding in plain sight waiting to hear of an opportunity like this." said Harry.

"Or instead a government bureaucrat looking to make a name for themselves or military expedition that believes there is nothing they can't understand and grapple with themselves. I'm telling you that the technology and the scientific principles involved in this trap, this prison, are millions of years ahead the science of even this advanced culture. I've come to you in the hope that you could help me sort of non-chalantly take over security of those facilities, without major fanfare. Because as soon as some other person struggling to fight their way up into power understands the value of these places, they will likely seek to block anyone's access but their own or their allies. And those people would be the most dangerous." said Harry.

"All I want to do is keep the thing locked up where it belongs, safely. While I study it more and work out a way to vanquish it. And if that's not possible to close the door even tighter to keep it locked up." said Harry, sincerely.

"Will you help me with this?" asked Harry.

"I need to think about it. To meditate on it. I sense nothing but truth from you and a genuine sense of urgency. I will keep this secret at least. And worst case we will study it further together." answered Luke.

"Good. Thank you. Let me give you this personal sub-space communicator. With this you can reach me in real-time anywhere in the galaxy. And if I'm out of the galaxy it will relay through my Empire's communications network until it finds me. I want you as the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order to be able to reach me anytime you need my help." said Harry.

"Oh, and if it helps in your decision. Right now, there is not a single life-form aboard Centerpoint Station. It sits idle, as it should. It seems only to get tampered with these days, when the like's of a Sal-Solo try to harness it as weapon, as he did recently against the Vong where he wiped out more of the allied Hapan ships than he did Vong vessels." said Harry, somewhat frustrated.

"If nothing else we need to take it out of the hands of madmen like that. As for it's partner. No-one even knows it exists except me, you and whoever those few were who were on there. At least I can't imagine any major government has claimed it. So, if you can get Centerpoint put under our control. I will continue to monitor its partner in the Maw and we'll have both doorknobs and key-holes to the cell door in our custody or looked after." said Harry.

"Okay. You've given me a lot to think about. I will get back with you on this in let's say one week." said Luke.

"Great. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for hearing me out on this." said Harry, as he got up to leave.

Luke simply stood to acknowledge his departure and bowed his head. "May the force be with you."

A/N:

\- The hereditary titles are only for prestige. They do not come with any hereditary power or land or privileges. They are only to honor the first families. If that prestige lends future generations any political clout, so be it. But it doesn't guarantee anything. And no, that does not preclude other families from also being so honored in the future.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Timeframe: 2017 (30 ABY), continued.

A week later, Harry came to a deal with Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb for ownership of Kessel. At the end of the day Nunb wasn't concerned about it because he too would start a new business venture that would re-employ all his friends. They would be cleared out in two weeks. When they asked if Harry was planning to continue the glitterstim business he said no. They could inform all of their contacts that this supply is going off the market. That the new owner had other plans entirely for Kessel.

In addition to his main reasons for wanting to take control of Kessel, he didn't want that filthy drug on the market anymore either. Even if the GA had allowed some legal use of it by the barest skin of it's teeth. He disagreed with that policy in general. And specifically, if there was an actual predatory disease in the force, this was part of it.

A week after that, Harry heard back from Luke that he would help him with his goal of taking over security of Centerpoint Station. He would begin to work his contacts behind the scenes and let him know as soon as he had something.

Meanwhile after Harry received confirmation that Kessel was vacated, he dispatched TF 72 from Triangulo to take permanent control of Kessel. Once there they would launch a satellite defense grid and send HFR's in to thoroughly clean the place, destroy and remove any remnants of the old detention center, restore the natural habitats, and remain there as a skeleton crew to maintain the facility and act as guards.

They did also restore the old topside Capitol City Kessendra and improved all the oxygen generators. This would give a decent place for the four Liberator's and their crews a place to set up a small off-ship outpost of their own. Nothing special. Just a place to get off-ship for awhile. This would be nothing more than a military outpost going forward-and the AE's front-line for response to anything going on in the Maw, while they protected the monitor and control machine. They would re-use the old Kessendra Stadium for some sports games of their own; and take a poll to re-name the street names of offensive Spice Mines Avenue and Slave Lord Boulevard.

...

With Kessel 'liberated' and under control, Harry just needed to wait for Luke to work his magic in the GA regarding Centerpoint Station.

So, whilst he waited for that he had Governor Sue Entwhistle take him on a tour of the major cities within the Triangulo Sector, and as she did so he met and they discussed certain key constituencies and went over the key commodity exports that the region was rich with. Since those could be immediate resources for them to economically exploit as well.

"Sue, I've read your reports. But please if you could give me an overview of what you consider to be the most important aspects of the economy that you've uncovered so far. In terms of main resources and exports?" asked Harry.

"Sure." replied Sue.

"First, the primary extra-regional trade centers of our protectorate are the Capitol world Gerrenthum itself and Kirtarken." said Sue.

"Gerrenthum because of its fortuitous location at the junction of three important hyperspace routes, led it over time to grow from a sleepy Outer Rim planet into a modern mega world. It is surrounded by thousands of navigation beacons that outline the hyper-space corridors off and on the planet, and thousands of starships pass through its spaceports every hour. Gerrenthum was also the original headquarters of the various Figg corporations, including Figg & Associates, Figg Excavations, and the Outer Javin Company. Kirtarkin exports Fuel technology. But most notably, it serves as the Customs World for the Triangulo Sector as it sits along the main Corellian Trade Spine, at the northern most point of the sector; and thus has equally large spaceport traffic." said Sue.

"That's good. I have an idea for Kirtarken. But, I will wait until your done to see if anything you have to say changes my mind." said Harry.

"Okay." replied Sure.

"Then there are the key materials exports. Ione for Ores and Gemstones; Burnin Konn is strip-mined for Dolovite Iron and Kammris Iron, which is a low grade mineral used in basic ship hulls, weapon smithing, and armor smithing. Allyuen exports Chromite, a carbonite sedimentary ore used in making stainless steel). Lutrellia exports Ochroid dust which is used as an abrasive agent in certain industrial cleaning solvents. Bespin exports a rare and valuable spin-sealed Tibanna gas used in ship-mounted blasters, ion bolt rifles, and other energy weapons. Manpha exports Plastics. The Kadal Asteroid Belt exports Aluminite and Corax Ore which is used in all transmitters. Karra exports the very valuable mineral Varmigio, trace amounts of which are used to make all hyper-drive cores designed in this galaxy operate. The latter was interesting because the previous two mining operations by past settlers were shutdown by insect swarms agitated by the nearly sentient hive-minded Karran rodents. Those insects have been disposed of. And Nothoiin exports the coveted Ur-diamonds.

"Hmm. Several good items. But about as I expected. We didn't exactly get the richest sector of space given to us. I had hoped to find at least one good supply of the galaxies most sought after premium ship-building metals. But still, some interesting ones. Please go on." said Harry.

"In the realm of Agriculture, Food, Beverages, Medicinal products: Bestal Three exports Vortal Tree Seeds that are used for medicinal purposes. Verdi exports Verdian Vine Beans which are considered a delicacy by the noble families of the Tapani sector. Doxxen exports Doxxen Tea, which is enjoyed by the Shashay species of Crystal Nest). Plavonia exports Plavonian Starfish which are eaten in the Tapani sector, often served stuffed, served at feasts). Bavva exports Bavva Ale which is popular on Cloud City. Deyer exports Fish and Water tabacc. It had no government and was in a state of Anarchy when we got there. We have fixed that. Ertagas is an Agriworld which exports nearly the entire range of most common Agricultural Foodstuffs. It was rumored that droids truly controlled the human colony on the planet. We went it and made sure that wasn't the case (it was just a rumor). Polmanar exports Textiles and the narcotic Reedug. The question for you is, do we want to curtail or end the narcotic trade and if so how to go about doing it? It is not used in licensed medical practice, it is just an underground illicit drug. And then there is Varonat which exports modified Aleudrupe berries, a delicacy in many systems). Of interesting note, the berry's seed can be used to create a blaster gas that is nearly as effective as spin-sealed Tibanna gas, so there is a secondary market for that as well." said Sue.

Harry just nodded along indicating she should continue.

"As for Ships and Technology: Isis, a former Rebellion safe-world is a crystalline planet rich in mineral resources. Instead of exporting any minerals for use by offworlders, they refine and process them right there and produce Starfighters for exports; primarily Incom T65XJ X-Wing, and Freitek E-Wing. They used to also produce Y-Wing fighter/bombers during the Rebellion but, never picked up production of its successor B-Wing. Primarily this operation now works under a limited license by those two corporations who have their main production facilities elsewhere, to provide directly for the Jedi and their allies. Then of course is Bespin which I know you already know a lot about, which exports its Cloud Cars. Abridon is the site of Abridon Shipyards which primarily produces RZ-1 A-wing Interceptors for the Galactic Alliance which were popular toward the end of the Rebellion and are still used today to defend space stations and slow moving ships. And finally there is Narg, the largest of the shipbuilding operations in our region: It used to be the headquarters of TransGalMeg Industries and has multiple shipyards. It used to produce its own transport vessels for internal use and during the Clone Wars era exported the Syluire-45 hyperspace transport ring which was used with the Delta-7 Aethersprite-class (aka Jedi Starfighter) and Eta-2 Actis-class Interceptors (aka Jedi Interceptor). And it used to manufacture the Bulwark Mark I capital ship which was used by the Techno Union prior to the Clone Wars. This planet is a bit unusual in that the human inhabitants there are rather xenophobic, which was a hallmark of the old Galactic Empire under Palpatine. It also has a history of having manufactured starships for the Black Sun criminal syndicate as well as the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. Right now, most of it's industrial capacity sits idle and that is one of the things I wanted to discuss with you. How to re-vitalize that economy." said Sue.

"Okay, we'll sit down and work on that. I am already thinking of some things we can do to add value to the economy here." replied Harry.

"Good. As for other Manufacturing Centers: There is Isde Naha which was the Capitol of the former Yarith sector, Greyman's Planet which is a major industrial and manufacturing planet, featuring the very busy Da'Harrin Spaceport. Indellia is populated by a SecuriCo manufacturing facility which exports advanced security systems, such as the ones used on Cloud City. Anoat has a small manufacturing city that performs assembly and finishing of products and exports them." said Sue.

"On to Tourism: Bespin has Cloud City Casino of course. Oko E is a Resort World, popular for its White Water Rafting on rivers of molten sulfur. R'terleD'er is Hunter's Paradise World. Orn Kios has a sizable tourist fishing community. It is inhabited by the native Ornki who live by fishing and live in homes of wood and canvas supported by huge lilypads. The Ornki resent the fact that offworlders often come to Orn Kios as tourists." said Sue.

"Do you think we should do something about that then?" asked Harry.

"Not yet. We are trying to be as least disruptive to the current ways of life here as we can, especially in the beginning. So we will monitor the situation for awhile." answered Sue.

"But there are a whole number of other special cases of circumstances we uncovered in our region that I want to inform you of. You might have something to add or take away from what we're doing, or decide to do nothing about some of these. But, I thought you should at least know. Some of them could have political or special intelligence implications as well." said Sue.

"Okay, let's hear about them then." replied Harry.

"There is the planet Sump, populated by the native Nuknog. It has a history of exploitation and being strip-mined, their self-sustainability destroyed, and their people turned into slaves. We are already working to refurbish their world and restore their dignity and self-sustainability. The Separatist Crisis interrupted the Old Republic's own attempt to clean the place up and then it was forgotten after the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War." said Sue.

"I think you are doing the right thing there." said Harry, nodding for her to go on.

"There is Koda Station. The surrounding sector is mostly populated by planets with poor farming communities, resulting in many farmhands visiting the station for excitement. The station was also visited by smugglers, and other fugitives who used it as a temporary hideout, the most popular place there being a place called 'The End of the World cantina.' Our presence there has stemmed the tide of most of that. But we still get the occasional underworld visitor who hasn't gotten the word on us yet." said Sue.

"I am wondering if you want to do anything with Vassek's third moon. It was the personal castle of the Cyborg Supreme Commander of the Separatist's, General Grievous, who built it into the rock face of a large gorge. It simply sits idle now. It's nothing special. I was thinking of just destroying it and recycling the materials." said Sue.

"Yes, that is a good idea. Go ahead an do that. Just give the place another going over looking for any intelligence that we could hand over to the GA. I'm sure they went over it thoroughly, but it's worth the effort before destroying it." said Harry.

"Will do." replied Sue.

"There is a planet called Faldos that is a dirty backwater world used primarily by smugglers to sell stolen weapons, armor, and technology. We haven't gotten around to doing anything about it yet. But our security forces being present certainly give them pause." said Sue.

"Go ahead an seize all the stolen weapons, armor, and technology there that isn't properly documented and accounted for; and anything like that of a transient nature-and deport the individuals responsible. Let the rest of the residents know that it will be a clean world from then on. We'll see how many inhabitants decide to stay or just move on. And of course turn over any such seized materials to our research teams to get a closer look at some of that technology. Who knows, there could even be something interesting in the pile somewhere." said Harry.

"Okay." replied Sue.

"Here is one I think you will like. The planet Tol Aldo which is currently uninhabited. It used to be former Imperial prison planet. Its surface is an inhospitable four-hundred seventy-seven degrees Celsius. The prison facility has one-hundred twenty-four orbital sensor stations and one-million four hundred-thousand thirty-six cell blocks each with four thousand cells for a capacity of five point six billion beings." said Sue.

"I see. So a small prison facility then. Sigh. Well, it would be a shame to waste all that construction. Go ahead and take full control of it. Staff it with HFR support. Get it cleaned up, upgraded, and suitable to its purpose again. Then we'll just keep it on standby in case we ever find a need for such a place." said Harry.

"Alright, will do. That's what I thought you would say." said Sue.

"The planet Najarka is an uninhabited, but about one fourth habitable, temperate around the equator, where there is a sub-tropical rainforest. It is the site of an old Imperial Biological Research Center, still intact." said Sue.

"Okay. Have Doctor Thomas take control of the facility and seize and preserve any biological samples there that meet our protocols for identification and contamination. If there is anything still of any use there, we might as well learn from it ourselves. I will also send her a separate communiqué relaying some of other thoughts I have on that." said Harry.

"Okay." said Sue. "Just about eight more places to talk about."

"I think this one might have some intelligence value to you, or conversely might be of similar concern. The planet Coveway, populated by humans, was once home to the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR). It was an umbrella organization for various entities that were designed to maintain support for Emperor Palpatine's New Order, and at one point he was directly involved with it himself and it took a lead role in that initiative throughout the galaxy. We might find a variety of types of 'contacts' there that should be looked into." said Sue.

"Right. I agree. I will personally take that up with Intelligence. Thanks." said Harry.

"Of course." said Sue.

We found an interesting little out of the way place on a planet called Anoth. It contains an old, but very well maintained and up to date fortress that appears designed to support anywhere from a handful to up to one hundred fifty people. It's interesting that it is not found in any public records. Yet, there it is, currently uninhabited. Spotless and kept modern like it was ready to move into at any moment." said Sue.

"Hmm. That is interesting. It sounds like someone has made a nice little safe-house for themselves. I wonder if our presence changes any of their plans for it?" asked Harry.

"I don't know. But, all of that is exactly what my staff and I were thinking too. Oh and here is one I think you should have Intelligence and possibly the military look into."

"The planet Yalara, was once home to the now extinct Yalaran civilization that was extinguished by its current residents, the Noghri. The Noghri are commandos and assassins who attacked and killed the Yalaran for the Galactic Empire, who at the time, wanted to get their hands on a planetary cloaking device built by a Jedi of the Old Order for the planets protection. But that plan was thwarted by the Jedi and the Empire never got it's hands on it but, it was destroyed. The planet is now otherwise inhabited by a colony of the invading Noghri." said Sue.

"Yes. All of that is tragic and interesting. I will have that looked into. The presence of these people in our region, troubles me. Thanks for making sure I didn't overlook this." said Harry.

"Of course. That's one of things I'm here for boss-man." Sue giggled.

"The plant Dosuun is currently uninhabited. It is a former Imperial Remnant base, a terrestrial planet, and very habitable." said Sue.

"Okay. How about I leave that one up to your discretion. If you need a place to put a pet project of your own, that sounds like a good place for it if you have the need. I'm not personally ready to order up any additional colonies yet. Just keep it secure otherwise." said Harry.

"Okay. Then what about Cuthbern's moon, which is also currently abandoned but was a former Galactic Empire high-quality weapons factory?" asked Sue.

"For that one. See if any of the other worlds we're trying to help give a boost to needs any new or spare industrial capacity; and then give it to them." said Harry said, looking like he was getting weary of the meeting.

"That sounds good." said Sue. "We're almost done Harry, I swear." Sue said with a grin. Even she was getting tired of this long report. Really though, out of seventeen hundred possible places to talk about, it really wasn't that bad.

"These next couple might interest you because of their connection to the Force." said Sue.

"Sure, of course. Then there is Dyspeth populated by humans. It is the home of the Force sect, 'Disciples of Twilight' which was started by a former Jedi called 'Twilight' in 900 BBY. The clan maintains neutrality. They believe in 'shadowy justice' and seek to protect weaker sentients from the cruelty of the strong. They possess a specialty in 'bending light' and are capable of using powers such as Cloak of Shadow and Shadow Armor to render themselves invisible. They can also create illusory phantoms to surround their enemies; and use low-light vision to locate enemies that concealed themselves. Their powers are stronger on worlds with brighter suns." said Sue.

"Wow. Very interesting, I will also look into that more of course. Go on." said Harry.

"This one we already took care of, I just wanted to make sure you are aware. In the Drup Asteroid Belt there was an asteroid that was partially hollowed out, used as home to a pirate gang; which had been immediately obvious to us given the location and type and load-outs of their small ships. Investigation confirmed it. There was someone there named Woern who was the leader of the pirate group. His pirates carried out raids indiscriminately, on New Republic, Imperial and civilian starships. As a result of that, the New Republic placed a bounty of 25,000 credits on Woern's head. The Elomin Council, the governing body of the Elomin, considered Woern to be a disgrace to his species, so they placed an additional bounty of 10,000 credits on him. We captured the lot of them and turned them over to the proper authorities. We seized their ships and any cargo and turned that over to intelligence. And we collected the combined thirty-five thousand credits bounty. Oh, and then we blew the asteroid into fine dust." said Sue.

"Good work." replied Harry.

"And finally, there is the planet Olabria, which had nothing of value. Except, it is home to a deadly parasite called the 'Olabrian trichoid' that is used in some places of the galaxy by assassins. We would like your permission to use the Avenging Angel to do a zero case reset of this planet ecosystem and biosphere, wiping out that species of parasite utterly and forming a new matrix for life, essentially cleaning the planet of that organism. There is no other sentient life there and no ruins or history of there ever having been on that we could determine." asked Sue.

"Okay. Have all of that confirmed. The Captain of the Avenging Angel knows what protocols to follow. If he agrees, then you have my permission." said Harry.

"Thanks, will do. Well, that is it for now. I know you were hoping for more on the resources front. We will keep looking. In fact, all the spacers around here tell us that even though this region is sparsely explored, there are still millions of more possible planets that could very well have what we're looking for. It's just too dangerous with their technology to go off of the hyper-lanes to look for it. So, we're going to begin a comprehensive exploration of every star system and planet in this region. Which, will take a while. But, one we finish calibrating our scanners for the molecules we are looking for we should be able to isolate concentrations of those findings and narrow down the search. If there are any rich resources here, we will find them for you." said Sue.

"Great. Continue on with that then." said Harry.

"Before I leave you. Here is the one big idea that I think can help spur some interest in our economy both inside and from outside the region." said Harry.

"I'd like you to lead an effort to take a nice large zone of available real estate on the Customs planet Kirtarken and, using our technology and building materials. Build a large spaceport suitable for both ours and the local star-ships adjacent to a large economic indoor and outdoor bazaar that is specifically designed to promote and sell all of the featured products that originate in our region. Then accompany that with luxurious conference centers, easy credit financing, sporting complexes, etc. Maybe even get those so-called Soupers that people go on about to open up establishments of their own there since it seems everyone in the galaxy believes they make the best soup ever. I haven't tried any yet myself. Perhaps I could make a show of it on opening day, to boost the interest of this thing. We would of course engage paid advertising in the richest worlds in the galaxy to attract people to it. This would be the beginning stage of something like a regional community department of commerce." said Harry.

"That is an excellent idea. And a good way to get the people of this region more associated with the human and cultural side of us, and of our interest in their success and well being. I will get started on that right away. Thanks, Harry." said Sue, genuinely happy that Harry is interested in the other side of their business here, not just the secret mission he's personally focused on.

...

After getting caught up with things going on in Triangulum, Harry returned to Atlantis for a top secret meeting with his High Council and Hermione. They met for the entire meeting out of phase, at a small conference table he set up in the special vault he had set up for very special weapons research; wherein was located several special weapons.

There were many things they didn't know. And some things they did know and/or would be safe to assume.

They didn't know if the Ori had spread out into neighboring galaxies or were they all still localized to the one? Had their population grown into the hundreds of quadrillions in fifty million years as Triangulum did to ten quadrillion in one million years? Or is their population stagnant?

Did they have periods of scientific and technological stagnation and periods of interruption as they had, or had they grown steadily, unchecked that entire time? If that is the case, might they be well ahead of them scientifically by now?

The edge they hoped they had was that the division that separated their ancestors in the first place into those two factions was the Ori's own wish to focus on religion and gathering followers whereas their ancestors wanted to focus on science and technology. But, when their ancestors left, they were the small faction fleeing. The Ori outnumbered them vastly and kept the homeland. They knew that some had already ascended. But had they all by now, as their ancestors did?

Anything could have changed in that time. Except they knew that they were still trying to wipe out the Alteran branch of the family tree as recently as seven point five million years ago. And it is that, which demanded decisive action be taken, preemptively in the defense of their future and their children. For the Ori's part, they've made their intentions perfectly clear twice already.

They knew that ascended were not so omniscient that they knew everything automatically. They had to be looking or aware of a thing in the first place and they could be deceived. They could not observe them in the material plane when they are out of phase.

And they knew what the star maps of the entire galaxy was before their ancestors departed. Accounting for stellar mechanics, they could predict the precise location of most celestial objects there, even now. Which led Harry to his strategy.

"Explain again how this isn't genocide?" asked Hermione.

"According to Moros' notes, the weapon, called the Sangraal, didn't actually destroy Ascended Beings, but channeled energy from subspace to interfere with the energy form of the Ascended in their dimension or plane of existence. Technically, his research didn't refer to killing at all. A better translation would be 'neutralizing' or 'canceling out'. I don't full understand that part I admit. But I think the bottom line of it is that it simply prevents them from returning to or interfering on the material plane, which is frankly all that concerns me right now." said Harry.

"Okay. And then you are going to get this Ark of Truth from Celestis, which you hope is still there after over fifty million years, and by using it will reverse the brain-washing of the Ori ascended on their followers?" asked Hermione.

"Isn't that just countering their brainwashing with our brainwashing?" asked Hermione.

"In a way yes. But, we aren't going to replace the one false belief with another. We're simply going to make them stop believing the other false belief. It's either that or end up fighting every last one of them to the last man, woman, and child-because that's how religious fanatics work." said Harry.

"I'd rather simply free their minds from, what will if everything else has gone to plan at that point, be their then dead, as far as they will know, alleged gods. Then let them live their merry happy lives however they want. Without a war. If that leaves them in a vacuum and they want to join us or have us put them under our protection like we have others, then we can do that too." said Harry.

"What if the Ark of Truth is not there or doesn't work?" asked Hermione.

"Then we'll have the war on our hands that we are going there prepared for." said Harry.

"Look. I don't like this anymore than any of you do but, we either go there and declare war on them first. Fight them on their turf and on our terms, using the best weapons we have at our disposal. Or we wait until they finally surprise us on our turf, on their terms. They have shown they have no conscience when it comes to genocide. I am trying to use the best means we have to prevent as much blood shed as possible on both sides." said Harry.

"If anyone has a better idea how to prevent the Ori from coming here someday and killing every one and every thing we have worked to care for and build, then I am open to hearing it." said Harry.

They deliberated for a while longer and they finally agreed on the plan and Harry would go off to put it into motion. The first step involved designing a special unmanned ship, operated only by AI that would travel the two years it would take to get there, to a location Harry had in mind that should be off the beaten path, celestially speaking. It would have in addition to their usual technology, the ability to render the entire ship out of phase. Giving it that little bit more advantage if it needed it. It would carry no other weapons except the one and an ability to self-destruct if it is discovered. And after deploying the Sangraal would secretly install a pre-built super-gate they will include in the ship's holds, and send a sub-space signal back to them one way or another. Then they would proceed accordingly.

After that tense meeting, Harry and Hermione still loved each other despite the appearance of arguing. It was her duty to play devil's advocate in any case. A meeting such as that one, making decisions to start a war should never be taken lightly and if there is no tense discussion prior to a decision such as that, there was something else wrong.

In any case, while Harry was looking in on secret agendas, he took some more time to check in on his deubarium mining operations in the Draco Dwarf, which is the one supplying the Empire with the material currently. Then the mega-complex he started to stockpile the stuff as well as other important resources in the SagDIG galaxy.

The latter was coming along very fine and had really amassed quite a stockpile. His thought was that while he could readily predict now how much new material he could produce from the program on a regular basis. Would it be enough, with a large stockpile in reserve to begin letting out say fifty percent of the SagDIG yield going forward to facilitate a commodity trade?

It would still be extraordinarily rare and their race would be the only one so far that knew how and could produce it. Should they give up that advantage to potential foes? Could the material give others the opportunity to become more dangerous foes whom otherwise would never be able to match them? Perhaps he should just begin releasing more quantities to his Empire's general service instead of just top secret projects, but otherwise keep it sequestered to their own race. There is the thought that someday there will be billions of his people and if they want to maintain the tradition that all adult Alterans get a suit of quantum armor, and all Knights with that and their weapons, then perhaps he just needs to keep storing it. There's more than enough now. But, that may not always be the case.

Or, should he keep it all to himself? With a huge quantity of the material, he could envision building an entire starship out of the stuff that would be capable of traveling through time and realities with relative ease due to the quantum boson nature of the base molecule. He still had a lot to think about. And the whole thing about realities, just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. Perhaps enough to experiment with it? To satisfy his curiosity? His zeal to press the boundaries of science and knowledge? Or would that alone be taking it too far? He wasn't even sure what he would want with a starship that could traverse realities as unscathed as one could on an individual basis with the quantum mirror. That thing was enough trouble. Heck, he still had the old Time-Gateship that his alter ego created a lifetime ago and he's never bothered to use it. There just isn't any real need. And the basic principles have already been proven haven't they? Now, he's just thinking about scale. Which could only be important if he was going to use it for something. And really what good could come of that?

He decided he would just continue to let the stockpile grow for now. Hmm. Maybe he could just take enough of it to make himself a super-well defended yacht-class ship that he could tool around in the Triangulum galaxy with, untouchable wherever he would go. Now, that idea had some merit. Hmm.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Timeframe: 2017 (30 ABY), continued.

The next day Harry got on the horn with a number of people to get people started on following up with some of the open issues from his meeting with Governor Entwhistle.

He dispatched a four person squad of Imperial Knights to investigate the Disciples of Twilight on Dyspeth. They were to confirm their neutrality, get a general survey of the order's demographics, give them the standard public facing introduction to the AE. And then if they were friendly enough, ask them to send three of their order to the Praxeum on Callos to assist in the Order's ongoing investigation of the Force.

Harry asked Ambassador Creevey to make contact with officials at the Noghri home world Honoghr in the Kessel sector and ask them to retrieve the few remaining Death Commando's and their families that are still on the new AE planet of Yalara. Considering how the Death Commando's took possession of that planet, it was now within AE territory and he would not allow them to keep it regardless of whom they served or what they believed justified their actions at the time.

He contacted Intelligence and told them to send teams to infiltrate the population of Coveway to conduct intelligence and counter-intelligence targeting the Imperial Remnant and their sympathizers. And to likewise insert someone on Koda Station, looking for anything.

...

Two weeks later Luke got back with Harry about the AE taking over security for Centerpoint Station. The short answer was Yes. The long answer was that the way he managed it is with the support of one of his trusted Knights, Tenal Ka Chume Ta' Djo, who also happened to be the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium.

The reason why that was important is because while it is still fresh in everyone's minds, she was able to press the Senate on her people's mistrust of Corellia having any influence or control of the station in the future. Especially after the reckless disaster their forces received at the hands of Corellian Thracken Sal-Solo when he used the station to attack the Yuuzhan Vong.

Sal-Solo may be free and lauded as a hero, but he had not yet regained any real political power and the current Corellian Governor-General did not want to rock the boat with the Hapan's just for Sal-Solo's sake. They had cost the Hapan's quite enough as it was during the war, and it wasn't as though they or anyone else actually was using it for anything. And they all agreed that as an ally of the GA, the AE could be trusted to serve as a neutral party between Corellia and the Hapes Consortium since they had no separate history with either of them.

Luke was a genius because he managed to get that done without alerting outsiders to the fact there is any issue related to the Force itself regarding it. The issue was just one of general control and security of the unused station. That served both the Jedi Order and the AE well. Therefore, with no further ado, Harry immediately dispatched TF 73 to Centerpoint Station to take control, and launch a satellite defense grid around it. And if anyone thought he would ever relinquish control of it now that he had it, they were deluding themselves. But, they would cross that bridge if and when it came to it.

...

A few weeks later, Harry got word that their 'special delivery' ship to send to the 'special project' galaxy was ready. So, he went and performed a personal inspection of it and verified for himself that all was ready-and surreptiously while out of phase retrieved a certain 'special weapon' and installed it where it needed to go on said ship.

It was then launched, with an expected on site, on target ETA of February 15, 2019 (32 ABY).

...

Some time after that, Harry heard back from the teams performing deep scans and exploration for valuable resources and habitable planets in the uncharted parts of their sector.

He had in mind certain properties of elements he wanted to find his own supplies of. This went back to one of his original aims when he came to the galaxy, which was to identify compatible elements that he could use with Alteran science to come up with some localized versions of some of their building materials and technology.

One purpose would be for their own organic use at their outposts and colonies so that maintaining tried and true processes could be done economically at scale with local materials. The other part of that, is in so doing with the local materials, if anyone got their hands on any of it, they would not have the best stuff from back home. Just the local variety of it, which if he had to he would purposely weaken and dumb down. The people of this galaxy were dangerous enough as it was.

Even with these new things not being the best they could offer, they would still be able to deliver valuable upgrades that should make the AE leaders and wealthy traders throughout the galaxy; without giving up the bulk of their true advantages.

Once they finished calibrating their scanners for all the most well-known and highly sought after elements in the existing economy, they were able to make pretty quick work of the scanning, like they do anywhere else. Still, there were many, even common ores that they did not find much of in their sector. But they did find a number of items he thought could be useful in certain alloy's he had in mind. He would have to get mining operations set up and begin to experiment.

The good news was that all of these new operations would be owned by the AE itself under a subsidiary shadow corporation that they would use just to obfuscate the fact a little bit that other similar operations in their sector or throughout the galaxy were in direct competition with the AE's own enterprises.

Ahem. Don't look at him like that. Business is business. The AE had been spending a lot of resources on this endeavor and hadn't made a dime yet. At some point it would need to sustain its operation there without continuing to drain resources from the rest of the Empire. Especially, when the operation in Triangulum could well someday dwarf the rest of it combined, and that really was an understatement. Their Triangulum territories might be the new core of their holdings someday and an economic market for their advancements that was almost just too good to pass up. It would pay to make sure it was set up to succeed.

They found a number of elements that were considered fairly rare and well thought of in the rest of the galaxy. The interesting thing was they probably weren't as rare as they thought, but for as large as they've grown they were still clinging to the shore-line so to speak. That would give the AE a lot of advantage coming in.

They found habitable planets with rich deposits of Cortosis, Tyderium, Phrikite (the latter two when combined make the extremely strong metal Phrik which is lightsaber-resistant), Quadrenium which is used is making ship hulls and would be an excellent material base for some of the alloys Harry wanted to experiment with; Kif, a high energy ore which could be a necessary element to alloy with, and Pyronium, which absorbs and stores energy and itself has a quantum energy storage effect. And three of the five known elements in the galaxy that can be used to synthesize hyperbarides: Hollinium, Vintrium, and Frasium.

First he would study those elements and their known formulations on paper, get all existing galactic knowledge of their uses into the Alteran core and begin simulations. Meanwhile, he had nine planetary mining and refining operations to get kicked off.

To do this, he called upon another pair of his favorite fraternal twins from Hogwarts who were later members of the club, Ashish and Bhavana Patel. They had always asked if he could find them a good job together, and he felt this would do it. He asked them to come to Triangulo and take on the job of starting up and running the mining and refining colonies on these nine worlds.

They would set up an umbrella corporation called Granger Industries (owned 30% by Harry, 30% by Hermione, 30% by the Potter Family Trust, and 10% to the AE Treasury) and register it not only in the AE but in the GA as well, so that it would be well known and licensed to serve just about anybody. It would then subsequently start new corporations under that holding company on each of their new planets and anywhere else as necessary.

The tricky part was that these nine planets were not on any hyper-lanes, the way that the natives of the galaxy would know it. Sure, he could put up their version of hyper-lane navigation beacons all over the place. But, he actually thought this problem for the natives would be a good measure of security for their operation, if only AE ships could make it to or even find those places easily.

So, the refined materials and conversely any imported materials necessary to the work would go to and from a Granger Industries Headquarters and Industrial Center, which would include warehousing for that purpose that they would build on Kirtarkin for that very purpose. Bringing those materials and finished products, once they were ready to start selling them to the general public, B2B, or B2G, right next to the giant new sector bazaar that Governor Entwhistle was also working on; and right on the major well-known and existing hyper-lane trade routes that Kirtarkin already takes advantage of. Then from there to anywhere else the finished alloys needed to go, including back to their other sector worlds, the natives would use their conventional trade routes.

He gave the job of naming the new planets to the twins. And with a nod to their cultural ancestors, they decided to name the planets after the classical list of twenty-seven Nakshatras (the lunar mansion), otherwise known as the sectors along the moon's ecliptic. The other good part about this was since Harry already told them to expect more discovered planets to be added to the mix at some point, they would have some future names to spare while sticking to the theme.

The nine new planets along with each of the new solar systems named likewise for them, were called: Ashvini (Cortosis), Bharani (Tyderium), Krittika (Phrikite), Rohini (Quadrenium), Ardra (Kif), Punarvasu (Pyronium), Pushya (Hollinium), Ashlesha (Vintrium), and Magha (Frasium).

He assigned them TF 74, plus forty-five other Destiny-class out of reserves to be apportioned five each to the nine planets for planetary security. They would start all operations off using HFR's and the specialized mining and refining bots. As soon as they had measurable raw and refined quantities of each, they would send samples to his lab on Leviathan so that he could begin live experimentation.

Once the operations were successful and the company was able to sustain itself and make money while supplying the AE's own material needs on top of it's organic sales; they would then look around at the native populations of the sector to see about bringing some interested people in for labor, to improve their employment prospects. But, they had to build it first.

They thanked Harry for giving them this big project and went to work right away while Harry did the same, retiring to his lab for the first time in a while to look in detail at those elements to see if Sue was right and the mix of them would give him what he needed to get started.

His first aim was to design a Triangulo version of the Alteran building materials, power conductors and nanites.

What he believed would work best of the crop of materials he had to work with would be to use Quadrenium as a base and he could ion-dope it in a number of different combinations with some of the other elements, suitable to different purposes. None of which would be as strong, powerful, durable, or long lasting as their own, but he believed he could replicate their general functionality, thus achieving his aim.

The first pairing which would form their new base alloy would be Quadrenium-Pyronium.

Quadrenium for its high strength and low weight, Pyronium for its superconductive quality and ability to absorb and store EM energy. The atomic structure stored the energy and when the quantum shells were unable to accommodate more, the energy was shunted into a localized hyper spatial matrix, making its absorptive potential extraordinarily high; this base material could be called simply Pyroquad (QP), alloyed in various formulations.

QP itself, would give them a type of functional equivalent to trinium-neutronium. But it would not be as strong as trinium or as flexible in its applications as neutronium. One application right off the bat would be a major upgrade to the local form of cold fusion. Harry estimated that with this new material he could make native forms of cold fusion generators that produced at least fifty percent more power output than their best currently do based on efficiency alone, and that he could design and manufacture ones as small as one tenth the size of their current smallest used in land speeders and pod racers. All using the same deuterium fuel they currently used.

From there they would build upon that with three additional synthetic variants. While the Pyroquad was forming in a parallel reaction chamber, a hyperbaride functional equivalent of naquadah would be synthetically fused by simultaneously ion doping the high energy source Kif, with either Hollinium (for low energy applications), Vintrium (for medium energy applications), and Frasium (for high energy applications).

Then as those are combined simultaneously in their reaction chambers, they would fuse the two resulting byproducts together forming the finished alloys they would call HolliniumQPK (low energy), VintriumQPK (medium energy), and FrasiumQPK (high energy).

These would be good as building blocks to create a localized form of nanite, which could for example, be programmed to replicate, shapeshift, store and supply energy, make more of itself and rapidly form any other construct from a supply of those refined materials, in a similar way but not precisely like Alteran nanites could do. Thus bringing Alteran speed and efficiency to construction and robotics, possibly even another weaker form of HFR and certainly major upgrades to droid design and manufacturing, using these local materials. With this they could potentially even make a local form of stargate, paired with the upgraded cold fusion reactors.

Toward that end, he had one more idea to make an alloy that would form just a superconducting building material of much greater density and strength, but it would not possess any built-in energy of its own. However, it could both resist energy quite well and when it wanted to accept it could store a lot of it. Through creative applications, it could be made to shunt the energy back out, creating ablative and reflective armor; using the stored energy to repair itself or for other uses such as maintaining a stargate wormhole connection for a period of time. Probably not as long as thirty-eight minutes like a naquadah stargate could do. But, testing would tell.

That would be another new alloy called 2PhrikQP, without any Kif energy source or any of the three hyperbaride elements. It would be very dense and strong, lightweight, highly energy resistant material. Good for hulls and armor, weapon smithing; or for high-efficiency, higher-capacity capacitors and emitters for improved lasers, plasma, engines, communications, etc.

This stuff might be so good, it might be useful to consider replacing their self-healing organic armor in Alteran standard ship construction with it. The only difference is the organic stuff still had a theoretical self-healing advantage over the 2PhrikQP for kinetic, explosive, and ballistic weapons. But this new stuff might be a bit better against energy weapons.

So, that was the initial plan to begin experimenting with the different local elements that they had found some resources for. The only thing he didn't really need for anything special was the Cortosis they found. It was popular throughout the galaxy because it's conductive properties cause lightsabers to temporarily short out upon contact. Used to make anti-lightsaber melee weapons. But, with repeated strikes a lightsaber could still cut through it. This was used in shadow trooper armor, battle droid armor, sometimes woven into body armor, made into gauntlets, electro staffs, even the Jedi sometimes used it for shields, etc.

Their own deubarium-nanite armor fielded by all their Imperial Knights was still superior, so they would probably just sell the stuff directly into the commodity trade right away and begin making money and a name for themselves in the market place.

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.

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[Time Skip: Because ... everything is moving along that doesn't need any more exposition and technical detail to explain it -and- it's not my fault that it even takes Alterans two years to drive all the way to the Ori galaxy -and- it's not my fault that nothing notable happened in SWEU continuity from 30-34 ABY.]

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1 year later...

February 16, 2018 (31 ABY)

The AE's unmanned mission to the Ori galaxy was about half-way in.

The Patel twins had done a bang up job with a lot of mighty HFR help getting all nine of the new planetary mining outposts setup along with their HQ and industrial facilities on Kirtarkin.

Production was up to commercial levels and Harry managed to perfect the alloys and materials he wanted to create. They had been making a lot of G€ (galactic credits) selling Cortosis, giving the Jedi first right of refusal for any shipments of course. As well as refusing to sell to anyone the Jedi black-listed (there were known dark-siders and Jedi enemies out there even if they didn't go by the name Sith).

Harry was currently still experimenting with finished products and applications of the materials. He had three versions of his nanites. All were capable of a lower-end AI, possessing less power, less synthetic neural conduits, and less built-in data storage even at the top end than their own good stuff. But all of those would have advanced applications for this galaxy.

He further renamed the products QP, QPK-L, QPK-M, QPK-H, and 2PQP to make it easier to further obfuscate exactly which minerals are in the alloys (that would remain a trade secret). Han liked to call them Q-pee and 2-pee-Q-pee metal and Q-pick-low, -medium, and -high nanites). Harry growled at him and Han said just get used to it. Harry thought they really needed to find better names to market those under. He was too much of a scientist for that job.

To make this again both easier on this galaxy and to keep their other trade secrets very secret. They did not use their own machine language and programming languages for these nanites. Harry turned to Lando and his companies assistance, with his own experience in high-end droid design, manufacture, and sales.

Granger Industries collaborated with Calrissian Enterprises to develop a new set of languages suitable to the way programmers are used to thinking in the galaxy; and they would co-develop, co-market, and co-sell the finished products. Only Granger Industries would have the rights to develop or sell raw nanites for applications other than droids. But Calrissian Enterprises would enjoy a perpetual exclusive license, for a small royalty, to develop, market and sell new droids outside of AE space, using the nanites-all built exclusively at Granger Industries manufacturing facilities or in licensed and approved Calrissian facilities adjacent to them on Kirtarkin. They could sell in AE space too, but they just weren't exclusive there. Granger reserved the right to sell in their own backyard of course.

All said nanites had an indestructible and unmodifiable base code at its hardware abstraction level, preventing them from replicating, adapting, or becoming self-aware. Any tampering with those protocols would cause them to dump their memory cores, shunt their stored power fusing them all into one solid lump (and possibly frying whoever and whatever was touching them at the time) and render them as useless blocks of very expensive metal that would do nothing ever again and would need to be recycled to raw materials to start over. Which, conveniently enough, could also only be done in one place for the time being.

Harry of course would have his own version of programming wherein he could do any or all of those things with the nanites if he wanted; just not in the models they sell through Calrissian. Naturally he wouldn't do most of those things anyway, but they do make use of replication for certain applications, under their direct control of course.

Granger Industries would directly develop, market, and sell their base QP and 2PQP alloys for basic construction materials for ship hulls, weapons, armor, etc. You could even construct a building with the stuff if said building was worth that much to you, because this stuff was expensive. Granger Industries and the AE were looking to rake in trillions of credits with these products alone.

Then they did also design and build a full range of new Granger Series Cold Fusion reactors made from those materials. They promised smaller footprint, and more energy per existing footprints depending on the engineering requirements of their applications. They had a range of sizes to compete with the old fusion designs from land speeders to the largest starships. As the only game in the galaxy for these new reactors, naturally those would also be very expensive. Manufacturing was still restricted to Granger Industries to protect their intellectual property, but for those they were licensing sales, installation, service, and maintenance to reputable companies throughout the galaxy (again checking against the Jedi Order's dark-sider's black-list).

Alongside all of this, the AE had their opening day for their Avalon Empire Protectorate Economic Cooperative Bazaar, hosted on Kirtarkin. Harry and Hermione did indeed make a splash showing up to cut the ribbon on opening day. They tried some of the galaxy's best soup from their indigenous Soupers; washed down with some Bavva Ale. And the natives got one of their rare looks at the Empress and the rest of the Royal Family, who had made the trip for the festivities as well.

They started opening up hiring and the labor pool to member worlds to take jobs at the mining planets or the industrial center. In so doing, they built a hyper-space navigation beacon network among the nine planets and then ran shuttle services from the nearest of the nine planets to the sector core worlds where people could take normal hyper-space routes from there. They were still going to maintain hyper-lane security of their mining colonies, for now. They foresaw loosening up on all of that someday, but they felt it was just too soon. They were all too aware that by opening up new competition like they were, they would make a good many enemies of many businesses that operated in the same industrial segments they were in.

Either way, with all the government reforms, the planetary rehabilitation programs provided for free to all their member worlds who needed a boost to recover from past exploitation, the starting and marketing of a new economic cooperative, and with the new industries and inventions coming out of their sector. The morale of the native populations as well as the humans there increased quite a bit and the AE was becoming even more popular. Not merely anymore simply because they enjoyed their formidable protections and the security it brought, but they were generally beginning to really like, respect, and admire the Alterans.

And the rest of the galaxy was getting to know them better too. Suddenly their little corner of the Outer Rim didn't look as much back-water as it used to with the products and resources coming out of it now and the economy growing there. They were actually getting an increase in immigration requests. The signs of their presence at places like Kessel and Centerpoint Station had not gone unnoticed either. Some liked that, some didn't. Those usually lined up on the sides one might imagine.

They successfully talked the Disciples of Twilight into cooperating with the AE, almost like having their own little Jedi Order for the region...but of course, ...not really. However for the AE and Harry, he thought of them as their own resource of force adepts. Which by and large went unnoticed by the rest of the galaxy. They found common ground on the principle of protecting weaker sentient's from the cruelty of the strong. They took some convincing of that in the beginning seeing as how strong the AE was. But, after seeing the records of the Empire's history from the time of liberation from the Goa'uld, they agreed to send three of their adepts to cross-fertilize knowledge at the Praxeum at Callos.

Once everyone got comfortable, a group that became friends petitioned both governments to allow them to form their own special dojo who could also serve on occasion as a special operations team for the AE. They called their little group, the 'Tano Dojo,' and much to her own dismay, Ahsoka took on the moniker of Master. This was a mix of four Imperial Knights, three Disciples of Twilight, and Ahsoka Tano-as their leader. They were quite enjoying mixing their various philosophies and fighting styles and techniques and were teaching each other a lot. So, both governments agreed to the experiment.

They got their own little partition at the Praxeum and Harry sent for four more Knights to backfill Admiral Entwhistle to his normal complement. This little mixed team of eight would live, train and operate out of the Praxeum more permanently.

Whilst they were doing all of that, Ahsoka was continuing to document everything, including the blended styles and making sure curriculum was put together to teach everyone what they learned. That information had begun being shared with the Citadel at Natania back in Avalon and was becoming a survey part of all Knights training, in order to spread the knowledge. And Doctor Thomas continued to take samples and readings and continued to try to learn from both types of force adepts and grow their body of knowledge in that respect.

They finished design of their force-blocking shield. It took the form of an armband with an emitter that a user could put on and take off like a watch, or leave on and simply turn it on and off as they wished. When they showed it to the Jedi Order they of course wondered why Harry would have those developed. But, he explained that he wanted to give them to the Jedi Order, to help protect them from external malevolent influences of the force.

Yes, while they had them turned on they couldn't reach out to the force externally either. But, they actually still could use the force internally, where it was useful to boost their stamina, reflexes, speed, healing factor and what not. It didn't block that. Therefore they could still fight as well as they ever could, except they wouldn't be able to affect remote objects with telekinesis while it's on, things like that.

But the benefit was, dark-siders couldn't overpower them through the force, foresee their next actions as they sometimes would do. Attack them mentally with their psychological weapons, use a force push against them, etc. So, then the Jedi saw the usefulness of them and ordered up a double amount of supply. Harry told them, the AE would supply them all they needed.

...

And while all that was going on Jacen Solo decided that his place was as a student. He did not want to remain among the Jedi, where he would be looked upon as a hero and feel pressured to live up to others' expectations. He also did not want to remain on Sekot, feeling that he would be too tempted to grow complacent on the seeming paradise. He decided to seek out other Force-using groups and learn from them, expand his understanding of the Force and discover more about himself [...] Solo had set out on his travels in 30 ABY, taking a leave of absence from the Jedi Order and no longer considered himself an active Jedi Knight. Over the course of his long journeys, Solo sought out many different Force-using orders...

The rest of that year and the next approximately ten months went fairly smoothly. A nice calm period of just continuing with the work already started and growing their business and improving the economy and lives of their people not only in Triangulum but, in all the other areas of the Empire too.

Harry never did build his new yacht that he'd once thought of because he could never decide on exactly what he wanted it to look like. Besides, he figured what the hell does he need yet another ship for. Maybe someday if he were to truly retire or something.

...

So, another year has passed, it was January 30, 2019 (ABY 32).

It had become a mini-era of calm, peace, hope, growth, and opportunity.

Then Harry was notified by Adam that the time for their special delivery to arrive was nearing and that it was time to begin to prepare for the next phase of the operation.

Harry told Hermione, said his goodbye's to the kids. Then called his special team and notified the High Council that it was time to execute operation, 'The Empire Strikes Back.'

Oh, yes I did (again).

A/N:

\- I edited ch31 and removed the reference to Dathomirians living on Lotho Minor. The wikia listed them as immigrating there but after going back and reviewing the materials several times, I don't believe it was the case. I think it was just the one, Darth Maul who went into hiding there for a decade, followed and found by his brother Savage Oppress and then they both left. I think that is actually it for Dathomirians there. So, I'm removing it as there being a current settlement of them


	33. Chapter 33

\- To Daniel Jackson: "Great holy armies shall be gathered and trained to fight all who embrace evil. In the name of the Gods, ships shall be built to carry the warriors out among the stars and we will spread Origin to all the unbelievers. The power of the Ori will be felt far and wide and the wicked shall be vanquished." —Doci

Chapter 33

Timeframe: 2019 (32 ABY).

Harry gathered at the site of their super-gate located in deep space in the very uninhabited Sculptor Galaxy, with an armada consisting of three fleets, the Tenth, Eleventh, and the Fourteenth.

The coded sub-space signal came through that their Sangraal ship had successfully delivered it's package and that the super-gate was functioning and ready to receive. So far it had not been discovered.

Harry had all fleet commanders on a holo-call.

"Rear-Admiral Whitby and Rear-Admiral Caudwell, you will take the Tenth and Eleventh fleets respectively, and keep guard on either side of the super-gate as planned. Whitby you remain here and don't let anything past that gate that isn't one of our ships. Caudwell, follow me in." ordered Harry.

Harry was answered back by a chorus of "yes, sir's."

"Tucket, if you would please do the honors, and take us in." (Rear-Admiral Tucket is Commander of the Fourteenth Fleet where Harry was currently embarked).

"Yes, sir."

The gate dialed and the forty-eight Liberator-class Carrier-Battleships went through one at a time. It would have been an impressive sight if anyone were there to witness it.

On the other side, the Eleventh fleet took up station keeping to guard the gate and entered cloak.

Then the Fourteenth fleet with Harry embarked rendezvoused with the Sangraal ship on the far side of the barren planet that it had been waiting in orbit of, out-of-phase.

Harry beamed aboard and checked all the initial logs and sensor readings. The Sangraal device deployed as expected. There were no abnormal indications and the special scanner designed to detect ambient traces of energy leftover from the higher planes, detected nothing. Whereas in their galaxy it always picked up something, even a trace.

The logs and sensor readings did not indicate that the ship had been detected at all prior to deploying the weapon. It did not scan into the regions of the galaxy they expected to be populated to reduce the likelihood of being discovered, so they would still be flying blind into that.

...

So, Harry led the fleet to the coordinates of Celestis cloaked the entire way and along the way detected no sign of advanced or high-tech civilization at all. Their scanners picked up thirty human populated worlds in addition to Celestis. But, all indications were that they were agrarian, pre-industrial worlds.

Harry thought that was all very strange.

After arriving at Celestis, he did finally see the sign of a higher civilization that he was looking for.

Not much that would indicate technology, but large domed buildings with precision craftsmanship and an eye toward some beauty in the architecture. Definitely the City of Celestis then. But, scanners picked up nothing but primitive humans there as well, with the exception of a dozen human-like beings that exhibited a great deal of zpe potential. The readings were not unlike what they picked up from full Alterans engaged in overtly using some of their zpe abilities. The scanners indicated they were carrying an object, like a focus of great power, on their persons.

"Finally," Harry thought. "Some clue that there is any real power here."

First things first though. He had the scanners search the ruins of the old city of the Alterans, where he believed the Armeria Verimas (Ark of Truth) could still be found. It was found easily since he knew exactly what he was looking for, they locked onto it, and beamed it directly to the command deck of Harry's flagship.

After cleaning it off he could tell that it appeared to still be in one piece, and hoped it would still work. All that he knew from that point forward was that it had to be activated using a password he still did not know, and opened in the presence of the Ori's believers in order to reverse their brain-washing.

He had an HFR who would be much faster at this than he could ever be, manually try many combinations of passwords. Harry thought social engineering would be a key to guessing it, so they tried a number of combinations of old Alteran words that would have been important at the time to Amelius, the creator of the machine.

When they tried the password Origin, it lit up and seemed to activate. Well, that was that then. Irony is over-rated. They were ready to go confront the human believers and whatever those power wielders were.

Harry assembled a large away team, which would be immediately followed by landing divisions of marines in case the campaign turned into a mess and they had to fight their way out.

While his three full company's of Imperial Knights (one-hundred ninety-two) prepared themselves and the two squads who would be carrying and wielding the Ark itself made ready. All twenty-four Liberator's in the fleet dropped their cloaks and began launching their Destiny Mk II escorts, all one-hundred forty-four of them.

The Destiny's had orders to surround the planet in a blockading action. At this point Harry believed he was just following their original plan and protocols. But they had not detected a single starship anywhere in the galaxy or on the surface.

Meanwhile, the teams were ready. Scanners had already made detailed maps of the Celestis facilities, and all but two of the dozen beings with power were nearby in one area that was clearly their temple complex and most likely the site of their religion's headquarters.

Why no one had made any efforts yet to stop them or intercept them, he did not know.

Of course he expected and anticipated that the Ori were defeated as planned. And certainly if that were not true, they would've known that by now. He knew enough to know they didn't abide by the rules of the Others and wouldn't hesitate to attack them directly in their energy forms if they needed to. The fact that they hadn't was testimony enough.

But, why weren't there other prepared defenses? They expected to still fight a formidable space-faring race of human believers and their armies. Not wanting to be blind-sided by ambush tactics, they stuck to their original plans and protocols even if they did look like overkill at this point. Hermione would kill him if they were not as cautious as they could be.

Once all ships were in their assigned places and the first squadrons of marine drop ships following their fighter cover were ready to drop into the atmosphere, Harry and his one-hundred ninety-two Knights, accompanied by twice as many HFR warriors, beamed down directly into the temple area. Sixty-four went into the temple proper, surrounding Harry and carrying the Ark. Another sixty-four went to the area directly outside of the main temple. And the final sixty-four beamed outside of the building entirely with their HFR warriors and fanned out immediately to secure the area.

All forces went rather unchallenged, if not finding rather startled and confused very average looking citizens; except of course for the main two groups of sixty-four and Harry which beamed into the heart of the temple complex and were immediately confronted by what had to be their leader with that gaudy white robe and was that supposed to be a head-dress of some kind? Along with three of his presumed assistant priests. All carrying staves with obviously some kind of crystal power source and focus. The rest would've been nearby and probably confronting other Knights.

The head priest obviously took them for what they were, an enemy; his eyes were glowing and he started shouting in the ancient dialect of Alteran. The lead Knights between Harry and the Ark and the approaching priests held forth their staves and erected multiple layers and types of shields.

The priests attempted to use zpe enhanced telekinesis to push them away, but to no avail, the Knight's shields held. They would find that their powers were no greater than the Knight's because they were sorely outnumbered. They tried several types of attacks that all met with failure.

The alter where the Flames of Enlightenment normally burned in the past was to Harry's back and he did not know the significance of it. But, suddenly the head priest, followed by the ones backing him up, went down to one knee and began weeping and crying out for the Ori not to forsake them. They were looking right past him at the alter. He turned around to see what they were looking at. Nothing much it seemed.

Harry understood some of the talk referring to how the Flames of Enlightenment were recently extinguished and they believed that meant the Ori were unhappy with them and were testing them. He began to get the picture.

These so-called Flames of Enlightenment were obviously the manner in which the Ori in their ascended state interacted with their worshippers and their priests. If that was true, he certainly understood why their flames had gone out.

Harry had four Knights grab and secure each of the four priests and took away their staves.

He approached the lead one and performed powerful Legilimency on him. His mind was protected, but without the power of the Ori there to back him up, Harry was able to power past his shields and into his memories.

Harry finally got the answers he was looking for. This person, called the Doci was their High Priest. Well, at least they'd gotten to the right person first.

These people called Priors actually existed in a state of near ascension, their genetics modified personally by an ascended Ori to serve as their eyes, ears, and hands on the mortal plane. Their abilities were nearly unlimited until the flames went out. They were still quite powerful because of the genetic gifts they were given, and when they were holding their staves which do carry power crystals that they can channel, their powers are even stronger.

Fortunately the Knights had power of their own, advanced foci of their own, and they had them vastly outnumbered, or the initial meeting might have gone far worse for them, even with the Ori gone.

Harry learned that they did have technology, but only there on Celestis in an underground chamber which contained a temple the Prior believe was built and provided by the Ori directly for their use only, to assist in their work to spread Origin. Other than that they were taught to believe that no life had come before them, and no technology other than that which the Ori themselves provided. And that only the blessed Prior and the Doci themselves may wield it.

He learned that the reason they had no ships and grand armies was because nearly all of the population of their thirty-one worlds were all true believers of the Ori and that any enforcement that was necessary was done by the powerful Priors themselves. They believed they had no natural enemies other than ignorance and lack of faith in the Book of Origin.

He also learned that all of their staves connected all the Priors together, so he realized that when they used the Ark on one of them while they held their staff, the Ark should work on all of them simultaneously. If he was right, that would be damned convenient.

Before he did that, he had four of his HFR warriors use their ability to download and store the entire memories of another person to download the memories of the Doci and his three priests. That ought to be enough to preserve the history and secrets of what they will need to know following up, if for some reason the Ark totally scrambled their brains.

That being done, he instructed the squad carrying the Ark on what to do. They approached the Doci and handed him back his staff. His eyes glowed red and he appeared as though he was getting ready to start fighting again when the Ark was opened and a bright light shown in his face, the crystal of his staff glowed pure white, the same as the other staves that the Knights were still holding. They presumed the same was happening everywhere there had been a prior or one of those crystals.

After a couple minutes the glow stopped, and the Doci went down to both knees, weeping again; this time saying in Alteran "Mia clementia denor esto. (Have mercy. I was blind but now I see.)"

After giving the Doci and his Priors time to gather themselves a bit. Harry spoke to the Doci for a while privately, calming him, reassuring him, and speaking about next steps.

...

Harry contacted the Rear-Admiral and had him re-call the forces. All but one company of Knights which would stay on the surface with him to accompany him and continue to guard him just in case.

The campaign was over, just that fast. They had won. Their strategy's all panned out. Now they had to see what to do for the people now that they no longer had the Ori. And their were forty-two priors, plus the Doci. Which, while no longer fueled with extra power by the Ori, were still very powerful and now very remorseful beings.

The Priors were then an anachronism. What should he do with them? It wasn't even possible for them to reproduce. The Ori had seen to that. They were created and disposed of when they were no longer needed. They never knew that of course.

He had ships sent to each of the other thirty planets and gathered to Celestis all the remaining Priors and their effects, and to seek out and bring with them the next three most powerful or leading civilian figures from each planet who had not been Prior's. The secular leadership, if one could say such a thing about any of those people.

They convened a great meeting on Celestis, with the former Doci, and the forty-two Prior's; plus the ninety-three other individuals who were considered to be the most significant civilian leaders from all thirty-one planets. Harry had his people collect up all the staves and known Ori power crystals. They would be returning with him to be locked up in his special vault.

Harry gave a brief introductory speech, having to speak Alteran, which for him wasn't something he did very much. Fortunately their gift for languages helped him pick up their dialect based on ancient Alteran quickly enough.

Then he had the Doci speak. For those people still only knew one law, the law of the Ori, and the Doci was the mouth from which it spoke. The ordinary humans who were forcibly kept primitive, raised and taught to believe in the Ori and the teachings of the Book of Origin their entire lives, for millions of years worth of generations; were not magically cured of their beliefs by the Ark. That only effected the Priors initially.

The Doci would explain to them what happened and they too would all then gaze upon the Ark and have the truth revealed to them as well. Then, with the knowledge of what had happened and the truth known to all of their leaders, the one-hundred thirty-six Priors and civilian leaders would return to the masses of the thirty-one worlds, each accompanied by an Imperial Knight 'handler' for both their protection as well as their testimony and witness to the events. As well as a show of their foreign power to make the point and keep the new message on track, if it were necessary.

They would take the galaxy under the protection of the Avalon Empire, with the consensus of the leaders gathered there (not that they were given another choice). And they would spread the news far and wide to the masses about the 'death' of the 'false gods' and the arrival of their liberators, who's ancestors were once the same as the Ori, and their distant cousins. That the Alterans having come there, were returning to their home galaxy that their ancestors abandoned over fifty million years ago, rather than fight the Ori themselves over their ideology back then.

They would explain that the Alterans felt compelled to return and take this step because the Ori were fanatics who at one time tried to perform genocide on all the Alterans, to wipe them and the principle challenge to their power and their false belief system, out for good. They came close, some survived, and now they were back.

They would explain to the humans of the galaxy, that the Alterans would now rename it the Celestis galaxy in honor of the name of their shared ancestral great city that originated there over sixty million years ago, when all of their people were still united. That the people of Celestis were the second generation of humans to be seeded and evolved in Celestis, in many ways similar to how the humans of other galaxies were seeded by the Alterans.

At the moment there was no known external threat to the Celestis galaxy, so Harry left just one fleet there to maintain a ready response, and to make sure change occurred smoothly and safely over time.

The forty-two Priors and the Doci would remain behind as teachers of the truth and try to reverse the brain-washing. They would pass that down to the people of Celestis and serve as a college of teachers to begin to introduce technology to the people, so that they could gradually uplift themselves after having been artificially suppressed for fifty million years. The Alterans would help them build the schools and infrastructure to do that.

The Priors and Doci would die at the end of their normal life spans, which apparently would last about three hundred years each. They were not immortal, just highly advanced genetically and immune to most things. The Ori never intended their servants to live forever, nor ascend. The humans of Celestis were bred without the potential to sense and use zpe. So, they would evolve to whatever they would become naturally from there without the benefit of that and without further interference by the Alterans.

So, when the age of the Priors and the Doci would end, and the people of Celestis had absorbed and learned to use what scientific and technological knowledge they could from them, they would teach their own subsequent generations and grow at their own pace. All under the watchful eye and protection of the Alterans and as new citizens of the Avalon Empire.

...

When all of that was set in place, Harry returned to the super-gate, they collected their Sangraal ship, the remaining fleets, and returned to Avalon. The super-gates would remain as a continued means to travel quickly between Celestis and the AE. They moved both super-gates so that one was a couple light years away from Celestis Prime. The one in Sculptor was moved to be co-located nearby the primary trans-subspace network hub at the Lagrange point between Avalon and the Pegasus galaxies. They placed a satellite defense grid around both super-gates, and otherwise it would be up to fleets on either side to patrol and maintain the security of them.

Harry returned home to report that the Ori threat had been eliminated with no casualties to their side nor to any of the humans of Celestis. It had been a cake-walk because the Ori believed they had nothing to fear and therefore no great fleets or armies were waiting for them. He was certain it would have been different had they known the Alterans and humans were back in Avalon. Which had been precisely the point of the mission.

...

With that done with, Harry dispatched a colony ship to Celestis to form their own presence there with a Cluster Sector governorship and provide a local base for their fleet, and to help nurture and bring along the people of that galaxy, insomuch as they might need it. However, they did not intend to interfere much more than they already had, other than supervision of the Priors during their remaining lives.

The Alteran people and all of their known territories were finally once again united, with the death or exile of the ascended Ori. They still didn't know exactly what happened to the Ori.

Then Harry took a very long vacation with Hermione and his family. Feeling a great burden lifting off of him, with that potential extinction level threat eliminated from the path of his people.

...

Harry, Hermione, and all their friends and Alteran leaders spent the next few years more or less just presiding over a small golden period for their Empire. Everyone felt safe and happy to just enjoy life and let things grow at their own pace.

While they hadn't been paying attention, the Asgard had over ten new thriving colonies of their own in Avalon and several each in the LMC, Andromeda, and Pegasus galaxies. Not to mention the booming recovery they were experiencing in the Ida galaxy. Apparently everyone took to the 'go forth and multiply' mantra like a herd of rabbits. It's understandable though considering how close they came to extinction.

Alongside Earth, whose four colonies in Avalon continued to grow and thrive, they now had a dozen colonies of their own in Pegasus and learned how to mine and refine neutronium, which was the new essential element to their scientific growth. As the Earth began opening up more and more merchant trade, the other worlds in Avalon were beginning to develop an appreciation for the diverse cultures of Earth and the variety they had to offer, especially in entertainment, food, beverages, and even art.

Earth itself was finally beginning to transform into a global Republican form of government, with elections occurring in every country and territory on Earth. The petty dictatorships and the internecine fighting among members of the human elite over their personal positions of prestige, power, and ego were finally ebbing away. The economy and infrastructure of the Earth was beginning to experience the benefits of clean, free energy and plentiful food, water, and other basic resources.

All except the wizarding world of course. They were still sequestered away in their hidden towers looking condescendingly down upon anyone who wasn't one of them. The only change of course is that most of the people who would've balanced that out were annually leaving the wizarding world in droves for Terra Legato and the Avalon Empire. Who knew what the outcome of that would eventually become?

The Kobol Republic in the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy was also enjoying the start of its first new golden age. They had begun very small settlements on each of their other eleven primary worlds, in order to make sure they didn't forget and got started up with them again. The scope of the former Terran government and their people and resources made a large addition to their Republic. They were beginning to feel safe and strong again, and the people began to look forward to the future once more.

The Furling sector just continued to chug along as it always had, except without the perennial oppression and wars caused by their former Sh'iar masters. Everyone was happily intermingling in a Republican style government of their own, enjoying their economic cooperative and the expanding trade between them and all the other races of the Avalon Empire, including the Alterans, Earth, the Tollan, the Tok'ra, the Asgard, and others.

...

Harry had begun to spend equal amounts of his time traveling through all the galaxies of his Empire, not focused just in one place for extended periods like he first was when he opened up the Triangulum galaxy.

But, in 2022 (ABY 35). Apparently all that was about to change as a new crisis was beginning in the Triangulum galaxy. Around a race of beings thought extinct for a long time, the Killiks. And apparently, as with everything else, somehow the Jedi are mixed up in it from the beginning.

Therefore, Harry returned to Triangulum to see what that was all about and see to it that whatever it was didn't upset the little golden age of the Avalon Empire Protectorate, which was booming as a result of the companies he set up and the economic programs he kicked off. The Patel's were doing a smash-up job with that.

And the Potter assets combined were now worth a half trillion G€ in Triangulum alone (he never bothered to amass much personal fortune in the other sectors of his Empire, because he and his family directly controlled everything that belonged directly to the Alteran race anyway. He did have wealth though, just more modest in Earth terms, around two hundred billion USD in physical gold bullion or four-thousand one-hundred forty-nine tons if one is counting...one must have reserves after all). (the United States has almost twice as much in reserve...or so they say).

As Harry got settled into his office on the Leviathan he read the reports about the Battle of Qoribu between the Killiks and the Chiss Ascendancy. Another empire he really hadn't much to do with yet. Apparently, the long ago exiled Killiks decided to begin to expand again and needed some elbow room, into the borders of Chiss space.

He browsed the reports, in summary:

There was a dispute in which the Chiss Ascendancy asked the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi Order to help mediate; however when the Killiks moved to Qoribu threateningly near Chiss territory, the attempts at reconciliation failed and the Chiss Ascendancy declared war on the Killik hives.

As a result it had become known that former Jedi Raynar Thul, previously thought lost or dead, considered missing in action from the Yuuzhan Vong war, had returned with the Killiks, aiding them, and enlisting the aid of several other Jedi Knights who had once known and fought beside Thul during the Yuuzhan Vong war.

According to an additional report sent along by the Solo's, Raynar Thul had been kidnapped by two Dark Jedi who's ship crashed and was saved from dying in the aftermath of the crash, by the Killiks when they turned him into a Joiner. However, his Force-sensitivity made him more than just a mere Joiner like all of the others; he became the UnuThul via integrating with the nest of Unu, leader of the entire Killik race, as he organized the once-disorderly species into a hive-mind known as the Colony. And during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, UnuThul began a campaign to rest the nests of the Killiks in the Qoribu system, which is a light year away from Chiss space.

"Oh god," thought Harry. "Another case of force-sensitivity screwing up something that could have been just a simple matter of a rescue. Now, we have an expansionist horde of sentient insects with a mutated force-powered hive-mind on our hands."

"Well, at least these don't need to eat humans to survive." thought Harry.

Then they discovered new information. Apparently there was some Dark Jedi involved and there might be two different factions of the Killiks. One called a 'blue nest' also called Gorog that appeared to be more violent, and when the Solo clan and the Jedi were investigating and helping the Killiks (Harry wondered why they were doing this in the first place, it didn't seem like their place to do so at all...especially considering the Killiks instigated the entire crisis by trying to invade Chiss space), they were attacked by the blue Killiks and the two supposedly dead Sith that crashed with Thul.

And Jacen Solo was back and apparently exhibiting new abilities other Jedi don't have. Leia was having visions of Jacen having visions. Jaina and another Jedi named Zekk were now somehow linked in some kind of bond and could read each others minds; something Jaina's on again off again boyfriend Jagged Fel who happened to be a Chiss leader wasn't too keen on. Luke had been almost entirely drained of his power and health defending the Jade Shadow from a second Killik attack. Ben made a friend/pet? of a blue Killik assassin that stowed aboard. Jedi Knight Alema Rar had been 'converted' by the Killiks because of her over exposure to them and was apparently now dark and sabotaging the Jedi as well.

Master Cilghal thought that UnuThul (Raynar Thul) had been denying the existence of the 'blue Killik' Gorog and their attacks on the Jedi (or the 'Dark Nest' as the Jedi had started calling them) because he really didn't know. That somehow they were a disconnected nest being controlled by another outside force, which they now believe was the two Sith they found (Nightsister Lomi Plo and Dark Jedi Welk) who were really not dead, with Alema Rar added under their thrall as well.

While they had been sorting all that out, apparently Jacen Solo, acting independently, persuaded Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo of the Hapes Consortium into sending a fleet to help the Killiks counter the Chiss offensive.

Harry just put the reports down and stopped reading them.

"What a mess." He thought, while putting his head down and rubbing his temples for mercy from the god of headaches.

...

Harry managed to get a comm. through to Luke even though he was running from one thing to another. To ask if he needed any assistance from the AE with his 'Dark Nest' Crisis.

Luke said, no... that they would handle it internally. There was a mess with some of the Jedi getting infected in some strange way by their proximity to the Killiks and he believe the Jedi would be able to handle it.

As for the Chiss Ascendancy vs. the Killiks (and the Jedi... or at least the infected Jedi). Luke asked him to stay out of that too. He understood why the Chiss were trying to defend their borders but at the same time had a duty to try to pull his Jedi out of the mess. He hoped to prevent the wider spread of war. But, if it came down to it, neither the Killiks or Chiss presented a threat the GA couldn't contain.

Harry said, "Okay. Good luck, just call me if you need anything."

...

Harry checked his sensor nets for the Maw defense grid, nothing in the logs from Centerpoint, Kessel, or Sinkhole indicated anything unusual from the Maw or from Abeloth.

He thought, "Well, as long as the Killiks and the Chiss stay away from those sites."

...

Having come to the conclusion that the AE would not involve itself in the Jedi's 'Dark Nest' crisis. He decided to go back to work on some other things he had not yet followed up on in Triangulo. Namely, now that their new localized metals, nanites, and cold fusion products were all taking off and tried and true; he wanted to design some Triangulo versions of the AE's normal tech. for manufacture and use in this galaxy. He would call all of these things for short, his T- or t- variants of some of their standard fare.

For example, he passed on to the AE internal branch of Granger Industries plans to build with AE standard programming, new T-HFR's. These would take on the roles any HFR's would normally perform elsewhere in the Empire, just using the local materials. Similarly, he passed on plans for them to begin building T-Stargate's, that would be made of Pyroquad (QP), controlled and powered by T-DHD's constructed with their new cold fusion reactors. Simulations indicated that these could support stable worm-holes as safely as their normal star-gates for ten minutes, with no inter-galactic capability. The amount of power necessary to make those connections would burn up the T-stargate. Incoming attempts of those kind of connections would just be refused by the internal control circuits.

That was all pretty good though. It would allow him to disseminate T-stargate technology within the AE Protectorate space. He would not be opening it up to the wider galaxy. Well until more of it fell under his domain of course. That would allow all the people of his Cluster Sector to move freely among all the worlds in his domain. And he would have security provided for at all T-Stargates by his T-HFR's. He knew that once the word of this capability got around to the rest of the galaxy, they would be the wonder of all wonders there, if they weren't already. And his T-HFR's would put to shame the best of all protocol droids or even any of the new one's Calrissian was marketing, since none of them actually tried to actually passably resemble human life.

...

Well, it was time for Harry to get back to Atlantis. Tomorrow was his son James' (age 22) big graduation from the Academy of Atlantis, with a Doctorate in Metaphysics. After that, he would spend one semester training at the Citadel at Natania as an Imperial Knight. Because he wanted to get that under his belt before heading off to Starfleet Academy to pursue his dream of being a Starship Captain.

A/N:

\- Total Alterans/Novum/Children = 9,667

\- Total Alterans/Novum marriages = 2,420

\- Total Imperial Knights = 1,767

\- Total Knight Carriers at full capacity = 27

\- Total Nr. of Star systems or Planets in the AE = 15,093 (2,400 are integrated Novum/Novah colonies in Avalon)


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Timeframe: 2024 (37 ABY).

Since Harry stayed out of the Dark Nest crisis, as requested. He only kept track of how things were going in the news like everyone else. Of course, he had a bit of an inside news source, so he knew more about it than most everyone else. But, he could also tell the Skywalker's and Solo's were holding stuff back. The whole thing must've been very embarrassing for them on top of everything else.

They ended up having a mini-war, which they called the Swarm War, with seven major battles that did end up involving GA forces. Most of the engagements were trail ward of Chiss space and they didn't make any deep incursions into the main populated areas. So, I guess you could say it was contained. The Killiks were exiled back to the Unknown Regions. They still probably would have called in the AE if they truly understood all they were capable of.

The Jedi held another Conclave, this time on Ossus and Luke finally officially claimed the title of Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Before that everyone just treated him like he was anyway. The main point was that he told all the Jedi that from then on they would put the order first or they needed to resign. One of the problems of the start of the Dark Nest crisis was individual Jedi responding to the telepathic calls of the Sith joiners and being tricked into helping them.

Luke also managed to save former Jedi Raynar Thul (aka UnuThul) of the Killik colony and was in the process of trying to restore his humanity. He was under lock and key for the duration, and Luke decided for the first time to put one of his own Jedi under the influence of one of Harry's Force Blocking Devices, in Thul's case, made so that he couldn't remove it or switch it off.

Following that, and in consideration of how the crisis got started, he reflected that if they had been using them as standard fare before, none of their people would've gotten involved in the beginning the way they had. So, he commanded that all Jedi would take one and wear one as part of their standard uniform. They could of course take it off when they needed to and turn it on and off as they wished. But, the idea was to have its protection available to them at all times.

Luke also decided to ask Harry if he could make a modification to it. To somehow lock each person's out from any other persons use. That way if they were ever captured or had one stolen by a Sith, that they could not turn it around and use it against them. Which Harry did of course, revealing that they could DNA lock their technology. That also had an added benefit (to Harry's personal mission) that Luke probably never considered, which was that for every one of the devices they deployed now, the AE would obtain and be able to retain a DNA sample from each and every one of his Jedi. Whether he understood the implications of that or was concerned about it Harry didn't know. But, it was worth the effort on Harry's part and would add to Doctor Thomas database and research tremendously.

...

In the meantime, Harry successfully had his new T-Stargate's and T-HFR operators and security for them deployed to all Granger Industries planets and locations, as well as the key most populated worlds in his sector. They were still in the process of manufacturing and distributing them to the other over sixteen hundred worlds in their domain. The people were amazed and when Leia got a look at the technology she was certain that Harry's people were related to the Celestials in some way. Not many people she knew paid attention to their ancient history anymore, but she would be damned if those things didn't seem a lot like the old mysterious hyper-gates of the Gree which some believed was passed down to them from the Celestials. Something she knew a little bit more about than most since there had been an ancient hyper-gate relic on Alderaan.

With all that Harry shared with Luke, he put two and two together himself; but as promised he never spoke of the secrets Harry told him to anyone, not even Leia or Mara. Ahsoka Tano knew the secret of course and she was not surprised at all. Just more proof that they were who they said they were and she was glad that they were opening up a bit more about sharing their very advanced science and technology. Neither she nor anyone else realized that he waited to do it until he could do so with materials local to the galaxy, nor that the Alteran's own personal equivalent of all that stuff was much better.

Lando was begging Harry to license the tech. to him and allow him to market and sell those T-Stargates all over the galaxy. Harry told him, possibly someday; but not just yet.

At that point though, the Avalon Empire Protectorate region of space, once thought to be denigrated as the mere 'Outer Rim' was beginning to shine like a jewel to all the other systems in the galaxy who understood just what the AE appeared to be capable of and the implications of it. There were the beginnings of murmurings as well.

Another year passed and many people of the galaxy were still licking their wounds from the Yuuzhan Vong war and the recent Dark Nest crisis. One effect of that was the Galactic Alliance itself was still using the credits and military units of member worlds to defend its far-flung holdings and rebuild the devastated galactic capital on Coruscant. And then the GA started placing restrictions on the member worlds abilities to strike trade agreements and defend their own interests.

Powerful economic worlds such as Corellia pressured the Galactic Alliance Senate for a loosening of central authority, and the GA found enforcing the limits to be quite the challenge. They kept on political pressure of their own and investigated rumors of determined sectors arming themselves, but the Corellian's nevertheless began building a secret fleet while publicly arguing that the Sector Defense Limits prevented member states from adequately defending themselves in a dangerous age. The Alliance attempted to use force to quash a Corellian insurrection, but other planetary governments joined the Corellian's' cause on the Senate floor, and the Second Galactic Civil War was stirring.

[...]

Three years later, Timeframe: 2027 (40 ABY).

New Corellian Minister of War and Head of State, Thracken Sal-Solo had been pushing for Corellia's independence from the GA. Corellia had been delaying its conscription contributions and tax payments, while making use of GA infrastructure and trade benefits; and stood against the defense limits imposed by the GA, but made no public challenge. Slowly, other industrialized planets like Commenor and Fondor developed similarly overt rebellious streaks. Harry's own Bespin had taken polls that if they had still been part of the GA, they would've followed Corellia's lead also.

In secret, Corellia began building a fleet comparable to a planetary assault force, supplied by planets like Adumar that produced weapons in violation of Alliance law. Meanwhile, Corellian scientists had tried to re-gain access to Centerpoint Station, hoping to once again use it as leverage-but they were utterly rejected and prevented by the AE defense forces. How quickly people seemed to forget that the reason the AE was there was to prevent access to the likes of them for exactly those reasons. As tensions grew, Corellia's soft rebellion led to the imprisonment of key Corellian's like Wedge Antilles, whom Alliance Intelligence perceived as a potential threat.

In 40 ABY, these tensions erupted into war. After the successful assassination of Thrackan Sal-Solo by Han Solo, Boba Fett, and Mirta Gev (acting as mercenaries in a coup attempt for Dur Gejjen, Sal-Solo's political rival on Corellia) the Galactic Alliance then offered peace terms to the new government, but they were turned down. Cal Omas reluctantly declared war upon Corellia and her allies.

With Sal-Solo gone, Gejjen turned his attention to expelling the Galactic Alliance presence in the Corellian system. As part of this plan, Gejjen tried to overthrow Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, an ally of the Galactic Alliance, by supporting a rebel group known as the Heritage Council. When that plot failed, he tried to assassinate war hero Wedge Antilles, due to an attempt by Antilles to resign from the Corellian military; his plan failed. All the while, Gejjen was garnering enemies in high places, most importantly Galactic Alliance Guard (GAG) commander and Jedi Knight Jacen Solo. Eventually, Solo ordered his apprentice, Ben Skywalker, to assassinate Gejjen. The plan was carried out in the guise of negotiations between Gejjen and Galactic Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas on the planet Vulpter; once the talks concluded, Gejjen was shot and killed by Skywalker.

Unknown to most people except for a few top military personnel, Thrackan Sal-Solo had built a powerful, top-secret fleet in the Kiris Asteroid Cluster shipyards. A day after the assassination of Sal-Solo, the new Corellian Government appointed Wedge Antilles to command this fleet, which included several new Corellian Dreadnaughts. They also asked Han and Leia Solo to come to the Kiris Asteroid Cluster to receive orders (Han, still being a citizen of Corellia, ostensibly had to obey the new government's call to arms). Much to Han's surprise, they asked him to travel to Hapes to discuss an alliance with Tenel Ka, the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium. Unfortunately for the Corellian government, they discovered a plot to overthrow Tenel Ka and resolved to prevent it.

They accomplished exactly that, and more: they uncovered information on the "Heritage Council", the actual would be usurpers, had hired Aurra Sing, the legendary Jedi killer and former Jedi Padawan. They met up with Lady Morwan, The Heritage Council's agent, and agreed to take her to Hapes to meet up with the leader of the Heritage Council, Aleson Gray. During the subsequent battle between loyal Hapan forces (including the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Anakin Solo-Colonel Jacen Solo's personal flagship, along with his Jedi padawan Ben Skywalker) and the Heritage Council Armada. Aurra Sing somehow penetrated the Anakin's defenses to assassinate Allana, Jacen Solo and Tenel Ka's daughter, and the Chume'da of the Cluster. Jacen intercepted her (with a little help from Allana herself) and imprisoned her.

The Corellian led insurrection grew from their original 'Five Worlds' separatist government to include a number of allied worlds who joined to call themselves, 'the Confederation,' including such as Bothawui and Fondor.

And the Skywalker-Solo clan were divided by the war. Han and Leia opposed the Galactic Alliance, while their son Jacen, now Colonel in the GAG, and their nephew Ben, his padawan, still served them; along with officially, the rest of the Jedi order.

Harry made both official and unofficial contacts with the GA as well as with the Solo's to find out what was going on. Harry was walking a bit on eggshells himself since the GA could theoretically call the AE in on their alliance to assist if they wanted to.

Fortunately, the GA actually told the AE to stay out of it. That they would handle it as an internal matter, a minor insurrection of one of their member governments. That gave Harry some breathing room. But, he didn't know too many natives of the galaxy personally and he had to sit and watch as the two families that he knew and cared for the most, were divided over the war.

Han and Leia explained their situation to Harry, given Han's citizenship and loyalty to Corellia. Harry actually understood and agreed with many of Corellia's original complaints several years ago when the GA started cracking down with harsher taxes and restrictions. But he was put off when he found out about the secret fleet that Corellia built, as if they were planning for a fighting war all along.

Han explained that they knew and had the same problems, that is why they originally worked with Gejjen to over-throw his cousin, whom they all agreed was a madman. They expected that Gejjen would then ease tensions and set everything right, but they were essentially betrayed by him and now compelled to work for his government.

Harry told them that he would try to stay out of it. But, there was even unrest in his sector over all the apparent never-ending cycle of violence and instability coming out from the core. That he'd heard murmurings that many worlds in neighboring sectors were sick and tired of it and may be ready to declare that they've had enough of all of it themselves and take actions of their own.

...

One thing led to another and it became an all out hot war of the GA against the Confederation, and it didn't look like a small insurrection to Harry, nor did it appear to be contained as they had promised originally. There was talk of Sith influences now, the return of a Sith order led by one called Lumiya, and the sectors of the galaxy who were not directly involved in those conflicts had reached a fever pitch, having just about enough of Sith vs. Jedi and being exploited to serve the warring interests of the core worlds. Which is what those things seemed to always come down to.

A group of representatives and several heads of states of various uninvolved sectors secretly approached the AE for a meeting to discuss their help in ending these conflicts for good. Harry could only wonder what that meant, but he agreed to the meeting and had Ambassador Creevey and Governor Entwhistle make arrangements to set everything up.

Meanwhile he had to personally attend to an urgent request he received from Luke. There had been a development in the war, wherein there was a coup inside the GA itself, Cal Omas was dead and his nephew Colonel Jacen Solo along with Admiral Niathal had assumed co-Chief duties for the duration of the war. Ben was tied up in it and he would like to ask Harry to provide sanctuary to both Mara and Ben, and a number of other Jedi young who would be accompanying them, back to Praxeum Callos. It turned out that Mara herself narrowly escaped with her life in a duel with Jacen, thanks much to Harry's Force Blocking Device. Harry immediately agreed and headed off to Callos himself to make the arrangements.

With the Jedi younglings, supervised by Mara who was also convalescing, comfortably set up and well protected. Harry rushed to the space station at the old Tango Charlie anchorage, still maintained in orbit of Tokmia, where they chose to have this secret meeting of regional sector representatives. And when all that was going on apparently Jacen Solo had just come out in the open as a new Sith lord, calling himself Darth Caedus; and Luke himself had just killed his Sith master Lumiya whom had been secretly training him.

Harry thought that too much was happening very quickly, as he arrived for his meeting with the representatives. He could almost guess what they wanted and was starting to count in his mind, how many un-deployed, ready-response task forces he had.

Harry was astonished by the number of worlds or league of worlds representatives had come for the meeting. It was led apparently by the current head of the Hutt Grand Council, Marlo; and was joined by a number of sector governors that Harry recognized including Governor Monjai, Kal'Shebbol, for the Kathol sector, the governors of the Brema, Bozhnee, and Seswanna sector's; and many he didn't recognize introduced from the Bakura sector, the Moddell sector, Arkanis sector, the Centrality, and most sectors in between. The one's not directly represented were represented by their larger neighbors and had signed documents to prove it.

Apparently, this discussion had been going on for some time in secret the past couple years among these people, in anticipation of what was to come that all of them could see written on the wall in front of them.

They had formed their own 'Shadow Council' and waited until the time was right. Led by Hutt Grand Councilor Marlo, this coalition of every Outer Rim sector from the Centrality, Cadma, Tharin, and Suolriep trail ward all the way through the AE Protectorate to the Trilon, Pacanth Reach, and Bakura sectors-all wanted to secede permanently from the GA, the IR, the NR, or whatever the hell they wanted to call themselves next-and petition to formally join the Avalon Empire Protectorate.

Marlo said that these wars that never end were bad for business, and the other sectors felt it was bad overall for their lives. Most worlds in the Outer Rim were nothing more to those people than places to exploit and bombard to keep one of them out of the pockets of the other, and they'd all had enough. They'd seen how the AE operated and would feel safer and more secure living under their rule and protection.

Harry would have been stunned if he both, hadn't already seen it coming and secretly hoped for it as well. This method of expansion. Through attrition and the will of the people themselves is what he wanted. This would be as close to that as he would get because he knew some of those world's governments were not all that nice to their own people. But, they would find that would change under his rule, whether they realized it or not. He agreed with them whole heartedly but he knew that even the AE could not violently rest power away from the core worlds and hope to hold onto everything peacefully after that; or hold on to it at all, just for sheer numbers. This was just another step along the journey.

So, naturally Harry agreed. The gathered representatives all breathed a sigh of relief. Because they also knew that many of them would've turned up dead after this move had the AE rejected them and the GA or the Confederacy, or even the IR had gotten wind of their actions. As it was, they would still need that protection from the AE to prevent that very thing. Therefore, those among the representatives who were skilled in such talks sat down with Harry and his retinue to plan.

This one turned out to be a long meeting. Several days in fact. During that time, word had been sent that after the recent battle of Kuat, that the Jedi Order had also withdrawn from the GA and was then setting up it's own third side in the war called the Jedi Coalition along with the Alliance-in-Exile government under Admiral Niathal that had split after the battle of Fondor. Luke sent along a message that now he thought would be a good time for the AE to step in and assist with this new coalition, if they would meet them at their new Capitol at Fondor to discuss it.

Harry replied that they would be there soon but that they had one more announcement of their own to make that would be coming shortly. As soon as he had that done, he would be on his way to meet them. The new 'Outer Rim Shadow Council' as the group had begun calling themselves said, "See, now it is a three-way war among them. We must act." So, act is what Harry did. They put the exclamation point on their plans and Harry convened his military leaders at Tango Charlie, along with all the currently un-deployed forces of his ready reserve fleets.

The 'Shadow Council' would maintain and staff a headquarters at the space station at Tango Charlie for their own protection as well as for their very necessary assistance in coordinating with their home worlds and all their forces which was about to become paramount when the AE deployed to their sectors. A number of the actual governors would return with the AE task forces in order to demonstrate that this was done with their backing, at their request and with their coordination, to ensure as smooth as possible transitions back home.

At the moment, the AE had two full fleets, the Twelfth and Nineteenth, as well as half of the Seventh, in reserve. So, fifteen full Task Forces ready to deploy. Harry decided he would bring the Leviathan out to play for this campaign as well. Since apparently it would be time to make a real statement about their power. He also comm'd back to the AE Capitol, Hermione, and the High Council about what was going on in Triangulum and his plans. They quickly agreed with him but asked him to please not over-extend too much. He had them send three more full fleets to replace the reserves at Tango Alpha at Triangulo in case they would need them.

He deployed ten task forces around the borders of the new AE Protectorate territory. This was now a wide stretch of territory but, there were a number of very strategic choke points on the hyper-lanes to and from the major worlds in and out of the Outer Rim sectors. And if necessary, anyone who wished to oppose them as an enemy would be reminded of the AE's lack of restriction to hyper-lanes, and a great many other things about their strengths. The sector governors helped draw up the plans and the identification of strategic locations, as they knew best the ins and outs of this sort of thing for their regions.

The Twelfth Fleet and remaining TF's of the Seventh and Fourth Fleets were deployed as follows. TF 71 was deployed to the Moddell and Bakura region and their surrounding sectors to secure them from the galactic west trail ward. TF 75 was deployed to the Brema and Seswanna region and their surrounding sectors, securing also the Rimma Trade and Hydian way trade routes and from incursions from any sector coreward. TF 76 went to the Savareen and Arkanis regions protecting the Corellian Run and from all other incursions coreward there as well. Likewise then for TF 121 assigned to the Abrion region, and TF's 122 and 123 to Hutt Space, TF 124 to Iotra and Suolrep, TF 125 to the Tharin sector, TF 126 to the Cadma Sector, and TF 44 to Centrality (re-assigned from the Avenging Angel as its escort which had its operations suspended for the duration of the conflict). In this way they had all routes and borders from coreward, trail ward, and spinward covered from incursions into the new territory. Once there, the TF's would, with the assistance of the local governments, seize control and take possession of all GA or other external parties military assets or infrastructure.

The Nineteenth Fleet would escort the Leviathan to Fondor where they would next meet with the Jedi Coalition. Initially, he planned to only announce along with the 'Shadow Council' the secession of those worlds and their accepted petition to permanently join the Avalon Empire. He had no plans to shoot at anyone if no-one else started shooting. What they discussed at Fondor with the Jedi Coalition might be another matter entirely. But, that would be for the following day. As for that day, they still had a lot of work to do.

...

The following day the AE forces simultaneously arrived in all of their new sector territories, Harry who was embarked on the Leviathan, escorted by the Nineteenth fleet jumped out of hyper-space in orbit of Fondor.

Harry immediately wished he had thought to warn them they were coming as multiple, barely coordinated as they were, forces from the Maw Irregular Fleet commanded by Admiral Natasi Daala, the Mandaloran Fleet commanded by Boba Fett, and what was left of the Alliance-in-Exile Fleet as well as Fondor's own forces were startled into immediate response to the massive Leviathan which none of them had ever seen before.

Fortunately, the Jedi Order did recognize the markings of the AE and certainly recognized their Nineteenth Fleet escort well enough. So, the dogs were called off. Many itchy and nervous trigger fingers needed to go take a shower and change their underwear after that one.

"Hi Luke, sorry for the surprise." said Harry.

"I just wanted to get here as fast as I could. I have a lot of other things going on right now as well, that you will be hearing about shortly." said Harry, looking apologetic.

"It's okay Harry. Thanks for coming. And I'm sure that with your fleet out there and that monster ship you arrived in, the GA won't be bothering us during our meeting." replied Luke.

"Well if they do bother us, they won't be happy with the result." said Harry.

"Thanks, why don't you and your people come this way. We have a large conference room set up that we can use. I can introduce you to some of the leaders of our new coalition and maybe you can explain why you've come here with Hutt Grand Councilor Marlo as well." said Luke, with a big smile for the first time in days, leading Harry and his retinue to their meeting.

They exchanged greetings and a number of surprised looks from others who were not expecting to see Marlo among Harry's retinue as well.

"So, you are the infamous Admiral Daala." Harry said, shaking her hand.

"Indeed Emperor. I hope you've only heard good things about me." replied Daala.

"Well Admiral, I only know that you get around quite a bit. I was rather surprised to hear that you'd joined the Jedi in this coalition to be frank about it." said Harry.

"Well Emperor, to be equally frank, they may be the only chance of stopping another Sith Dark Lord from conquering the galaxy. But, then again, if you are here to help..." Daala replied.

"We'll see. First let us see how all of you react to the news I brought here."

...

As Luke got the gathering settled, with the help and leadership of their sponsor, Fondor President Shas Vadde.

Luke, knowing Harry best of anyone in the room sat next to him at the conference and whispered "I didn't know you knew President Vadde?" asked Luke.

"Oh yes," Harry whispered back. Fondor, in fact much of this sector, are big customers of our food and beverage export business. A number of our native items are considered delicacies here. He and I have met on a few occasions over the years." replied Harry.

Shas Vadde originally supported the Confederation, but after Jacen Solo began bombing Oridin in the second battle of Fondor, he surrendered to Admiral Cha Niathal; and then later allowed her to set up a government in exile on Fondor when that decision caused her and Jacen to split on the matter, each attempting to have the other arrested and removed from their office. Most of the fleet sided with Jacen, so he kept the majority of the fleet after a number of defections to Niathal, but most importantly kept Coruscant and therefore the seat of GA power and most resources.

"Thank you for coming Emperor Potter. I am sure I speak for the rest of the members of our Coalition when I say that I hope we can persuade you to enter this conflict on our side, to put an end to another bloody conflict originating in the hands of yet another Sith lord." said President Vadde.

"Of course. You're welcome President Vadde." replied Harry.

"I am sure, as most of you know, that having a mutual defense alliance treaty with the GA, we were put into a precarious position in this civil war. However, I was asked by both sides, including the GA government to stay out of it in the beginning. And so we have." said Harry.

"We were quite dismayed and I'm afraid to say, sorry Master Skywalker, not entirely shocked to find that young Jacen Solo had actually become a student of Sith and had taken up the mantle of a Sith Lord himself." said Harry.

"But then again, especially with your recent division Admiral Niathal, leaving Solo in firm head of the GA government, that presented a very substantive as well as technical problem for the AE. You see, I doubt the boy has read the fine print in our alliance, but if you will recall Master Skywalker, it has a clause that nullifies said treaty at our option if the then New Republic or any of its successor governments were to fall under the rule of another Sith." said Harry.

Harry could see across the room firm nods of the head and smiles in agreement from both Admiral Natasi Daala of the Maw Irregular Fleet, and Boba Fett, leader of the Mandaloran. They apparently recognized the wisdom in Harry having that foresight in the very beginning and their respect for him went up a full notch. Neither of them having any love for Jedi or any force users to begin with.

"I do recall that Emperor Potter and you are correct. I can testify to this room, that is indeed the case." replied Luke.

"Thank you." replied Harry.

"But before we get into how the AE may work with you, first I want to make an announcement of another change that is taking effect right now, at the same time as this meeting. And that is also the reason that Hutt Grand Councilor Marlo accompanied me to this meeting." said Harry.

"If I may, I would actually like to turn the floor over to Grand Councilor Marlo to make the announcement that will be very important for you to know about before we continue." said Harry.

"By all means Emperor Potter, please be our guest. Grand Councilor Marlo, the floor is yours." answered President Vadde.

Speaking through a universal translator head piece that Harry made for Marlo to assist with meetings like this, Marlo said:

"Greetings fellow governors and world leaders." said Marlo.

"I have come to you today in the company of Emperor Potter to make the following announcement and of course my personal show of support for it." continued Marlo.

"As of the conclusion of a grand meeting of Outer Rim leaders yesterday, and taking effect right now in sectors all over their territories. All of the sectors and governments in the region of space of the Outer Rim from the spinward borders of the sectors of Suolrep, Tharin, Cadma, and Centrality, through all of Hutt space, trailing through the previously existing AE territory, all the way to the edge of organized Outer Rim space to the borders of the sectors Trilon, Bakura, and the Pacanth Reach; and from those borders on a radial from the galactic core to the edge of the galactic disc-have seceded from the control of the GA or any other predecessor galactic government, and through petition to the Avalon Empire, have effectively immediately, joined the Avalon Empire, for their protection and their rule, away from the warmongering divisions that have plagued us from the core worlds since the beginning of time." announced Marlo.

"Thank you." said Marlo, as he slithered away from the podium to resume his position in the conference standing behind Emperor Potter and the rest of his retinue.

You could have heard a pin drop and even the likes of Daala and Fett had their jaws dropped. No one there had anticipated that move.

No one else had regained their exposure yet, so Luke began with a simple: "Really?" looking to Harry who he was seated next to.

"Yes. A secret 'Outer Rim Shadow Council' representing all of those worlds requested to see me several days ago, at about the same time that you comm'd me with your news Luke." said Harry.

"We sequestered together and I heard them out and listened to their plans. Their reasoning was sound. They are over-tired of the constant war brought down upon their heads by the more powerful worlds of the galactic core. Tired of being exploited and run rough-shod over in every way imaginable. For a while I was wary of the move itself, until I learned of Jacen Solo's public outing as a Sith Lord." said Harry.

"That was the last straw for me too. I will tell you that I owe it to the Skywalker-Solo clan, and of course Han and Leia specifically, to try to bring Jacen in peacefully or at least alive. So, I will try to do that. But, I think your own opposition to him shows that you will do what you must to stop him too. Luke, am I not correct that he recently tried to kill your wife Mara and has been trying to turn your own son as well?" said Harry.

"You are right about all of that of course. And that is why we are all gathered here in this coalition. There are some among us that might not have worked well together in the past, but for all of our failings as Jedi, we understand the danger of the Sith and will accept all help to stop him." said Luke.

Harry glanced over to both Daala and Fett who were sort of nodding along with a slight roll of the eyes and shrug from Daala. He could tell they were among those who would normally rather just 'stick a needle in their [Jedi's] eye and hope for all of them to die. (alright muse, don't you start trying to do crappy poetry now too, damn you!)

Harry looked over to Admiral Niathal, ostensibly the official GA government-in-exile, as far as this gathering was concerned.

"What do you say Admiral? I would be safe to assume that the GA would not normally just let something like this go. After all, that is essentially what started all this mess with the original insurrection of the Five Worlds. Of course, now we all know that it was all instigated by Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith who manipulated all of you whilst she trained Jacen for his role. Isn't that correct Master Skywalker? Or at least that is what I inferred from the information you sent me on all of that." said Harry.

Admiral Niathal was ready to respond but, she waited for Luke to reply first.

"Yes, that is what we now believe. Of course we still think there were certain power-hungry individuals, like a Sal-Solo, who wanted it for their own reasons as well. But, that is what the Sith do, they prey so easily on those who already think as they do and then they manipulate the chess board until they are ready to strike." said Luke.

"Yes, well, that does explain and justify the Outer Rim worlds frustration and actions doesn't it?" Harry replied.

"I must concede that it does." replied Luke, as all eyes turned toward Admiral Niathal to hear what she thought.

"I cannot disagree with any of the things you've said. I am afraid that I too am one of those who was indirectly manipulated by the Sith, having been directly manipulated by Colonel Solo. In the beginning President Omas began the war in reaction to what he believed was at first unreasonable and then eventually intolerable actions on Corellia's part, and we all thought that Solo was simply a strong-willed patriot." said Niathal.

"As you know, owing to those circumstances. I was neither elected or placed properly into power as a co-Chief of State either. An act I will forever remain ashamed of for my part. And I see now the deeper manipulations and the insidious will of other parties such as the Sith behind all of it." said Niathal.

"So, I don't know how much my word counts but, for my part, you will receive no disagreement from me. I will formally recognize those Outer Rim territories breaking away and joining your Empire, Emperor Potter. It is the least I can do now. But, as I said I do not know that my word counts for much." Niathal concluded.

President Vadde re-took the podium and said: "Well then, for the sake of moving the purpose of this meeting forward. And for what it is worth coming from the leaders and governments represented in this room, why don't we have a show of hands for our recognition of the new territories of the Avalon Empire Protectorate. That should give Emperor Potter some assurance at least that we would not oppose him once this civil war of ours is concluded. If you all agree."

The gathered leaders were all unanimous in their recognition of the acts of the region of Outer Rim worlds previously defined by Grand Councilor Marlo and as accepted by Emperor Potter.

"That is good. At least we in this room are on the same page. And can recognize what these kind of wars is costing us. Why don't we take a two hour break for lunch and to intermingle a bit and get the stress and anxiety of that discussion out of our systems for the nest part." President Vadde said, as he dismissed the meeting for lunch.

A/N:

\- If you hadn't recognized this yet, everything in SWEU Legacy is completely AU now. Events may not happen as they originally did at all, or in a different order; and in some causes owed to different causality. Since Harry and the AE are definitely interfering now. Example: Mara didn't die and won't. Ben is out of Jacen' clutches a little sooner than fanon. Things like that will go a bit differently now. But, some things will still happen as well, albeit somewhat differently. With the same or similar ends being met eventually.

\- The credit for there being 'safety's' on the Force Blocking Devices is attributed to HowInMadHowie.

\- The Ori never 'observed' SG1 sending the Sangraal to the Ori galaxy in the canon story, nor did the Ancient ascended in any way punish them for it. I believe actually that they helped them along with it (Morgan Le Fey, aka Ganos Lal); and the Ori themselves were never punished for attempting genocide on and successful slaughter of most of the Alterans and humans 7.5 mya. The "real" Celestials themselves do have different rules to follow per The Phoenix Force and were punished for their interference in the lives of the 'pre-cursor' races who they were meant not to interfere with. This action between the Alteran's and the Ori is itself an internecine war between two factions of the same 'pre-cursor' race, and wasn't punished or interfered with before and won't be now.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Timeframe: 2027-2028 (40-41 ABY, continued).

After lunch, the leaders reconvened and they convinced Harry to just publicly state the AE's support for the Jedi Coalition and to use his forces to protect their vulnerable worlds, in a rear-guard action. Allowing the Coalition to muster their full-strength on a counter-offensive against the GA.

Harry agreed and the Coalition planned their strike against the allied GA and IR forces, feeling more secure than they did before.

After word got back to the GA about the 'defection' of a large part of the Outer Rim territories to the AE and the AE's public breaking of their mutual defense alliance with the GA and taking the Jedi Coalition's side in the war. The GA attempted to send small reconnaissance fleets to several of those Outer Rim territories to see the truth of it and test their resolve.

For the first time since entering the galaxy, AE forces had to turn their plasma cannons onto GA ships and destroy them.

GA Head of State Solo really wanted to 'speak' to Emperor Potter but, could find no way of getting in touch with him. He didn't even have any partially neutral 'allies' left who could broker a communication with him. He swore he would kill Potter for his interference.

So, Harry left the bulk of the Nineteenth Fleet at Fondor to protect the Jedi Coalition's new Capital and their anchorage. He sent a couple more task forces and task units of the fleet to patrol and protect a few other important shipyards or infrastructure worlds for the Coalition.

Meanwhile, to demonstrate his resolve. Harry decided to accompany every major engagement of the Coalition fleet, in the Leviathan. Not taking offensive action. Just providing screening and shielding support, as well as supply, medical, and logistical support. All of which were of formidable assistance to the forces in the field. If it helped to demonstrate a little bit of shock and all in several key locations and in front of several key potential enemies while he did it, so much the better.

Harry personally hoped for a confrontation with the little Jedi upstart calling himself a Sith Lord, as well.

Toward that end, Harry also provided an entire wing of his CIC deck portioned off to serve as a war-room and command-center for the leaders of the Coalition. From there they could monitor in real-time and coordinate with all their forces through the AE's top of the line hologram's and computers. So, they agreed that embarked on the Leviathan while they commanded these missions would include: Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker, and Admiral Cha Niathal. Admiral Natasi Daala preferred to remain aboard and command from her flagship, the ISD-2 Chimaera; and Boba Fett likewise preferred to command his fleet in person too.

In the First battle of Roche, the Imperial Remnant, allied with Darth Caedus's faction of the Galactic Alliance, attempted to capture the Roche asteroids to obtain Verpine technology for their war effort. The Mandalorans, led by Boba Fett, allied with the Verpine, defended them with the help of Jacen's twin sister, Jaina Solo. The Verpine asteroid base Nickel One reduced the IR's flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Dominion to a flaming hulk by a concentrated star fighter assault; costing the lives of nearly the entire Verpine soldier class. But the assault was turned back. The Leviathan was not been present at that engagement.

There was a Second Battle of Roche that followed not long after when the GA and their allies regrouped for a second run. That time, the full might of the Jedi Coalition fleet and their allies were on hand with the Leviathan serving as command and support, to defend against a large armada of the GA and its allies. For the Jedi Coalition side they were joined by fleets of the Hapan Royal Navy and the Confederation. Harry hated to just standby and watch and only provide support without fire because the Coalition not for lack of any effort or spirit, eventually lost the battle.

The Confederation forces which really represented their own side in the battle were trapped and forced to surrender to the GA. The Imperials were so angry at the Mandalorans involvement that they set out to develop a nanovirus designed to target Boba Fett's entire family line, out of revenge. The Alliance-in-Exile forces were defeated, and Admiral Niathal who chose to lead that engagement in person was missing-in-action (MIA). Both sides took heavy losses. Both Darth Caedus and Jaina Solo were wounded. Two-thirds of the Mandalorans were casualties, as were seven of the Moffs from the other side.

With the Leviathan there, at least the surviving defending fleet was able to make a safe retreat. Darth Caedus got his first personal look at the Leviathan and he became scared as well, but he wouldn't show it. He knew that any race that could build a capital ship of that magnitude was something to be feared. Feared in the way he wanted everyone to fear him. All to preserve good order of course. Nevertheless, he could not pass up the opportunity now that he was in direct line of sight, to contact Emperor Potter and taunt him, since he seemed unwilling to fight.

Darth Caedus transmitted a holo-image of himself over to the command-deck of the Leviathan.

"Emperor Potter, finally we meet." said Darth Caedus, attempting to look dark and imposing in his flowing dark robes.

"Jacen Solo, you forget. We met before, on a number of occasions. When you were a mere padawan learning at your dear uncle's feet, enjoying the hospitality of the Praxeum in Empire space." replied Harry, with a straight face. Knowing that Caedus had comm'd him to taunt him as all dark-siders apparently are wont to do in their egomania.

"Jacen was a boy. I am Caedus, Master of the Sith and the Galaxy." said Caedus.

Harry just non-chalantly nodded as he received status through the neural interface that thanks to the idiot transmitting himself to them, that they had now established a full infallible pattern lock on him even through his shields.

"Well, Darth. May I call you Darth then? Those are nice shields you have there. Powered by many powerful fusion generators I take it?" said Harry.

"Good, good." continued Harry, as he stood there looking thoughtful rubbing the non-existent hair on his chin.

"It was kind of you to transmit your coordinates to me the way you did, because now I have a full infallible transporter lock on you." said Harry as mentally commanded his ship's transporters to beam the little dark lord directly into a stasis pod, into induced stasis-sleep, surrounded by a level ten containment field which included the new force-blocking technology.

He verified that he had indeed captured the idiot.

Then he said, broadcasting on all frequencies: "Attention to whomever is now in command of the GA fleet. I assume that would be you Admiral Bwua'tu, if you survived the battle." said Harry, pausing for effect.

"This is Emperor Potter, aboard my flagship Leviathan. I have now captured alive one Colonel Jacen Solo, styling himself as a Sith Lord, Darth Caedus, usurper to the headship of the Galactic Alliance. I have arrested him on charges as a war criminal, traitor, assassin, murderer, thief, terrorist and fugitive from justice from the proper Galactic Alliance government-in-exile, currently based at Fondor. I will be extraditing him to their care, forthwith. Have a good day." announced Harry, flippantly but with all sincerity.

Then the Leviathan and the remains of the surviving Jedi Coalition fleet jumped into hyper-space, leaving a stunned, victorious?, GA fleet sitting quietly in orbit of Roche, wondering what to do next.

...

The Leviathan and allied fleet arrived safely at Fondor and the rest to the astonishing news that at the final closing moments of the Battle of Roche, Emperor Potter actually captured Darth Caedus alive.

Jaina, his twin sister wept at the news. Believing that the war had to end now and her brother would live and that somehow throughout all of this he could be returned to her. She still ached for him in her heart, even though she had been resolved to do her duty and kill him herself if she had to, to stop his madness.

Luke, Leia, Han, Ben, the rest of the Skywalker-Solo clan were overjoyed as well while they also knew many more hard things were yet to come. Mara wasn't entirely sure she was happy to hear that he had been captured alive. Just wait until Harry woke him up from stasis and trials would begin. Plus, it was certain that even though Luke was sure it would be futile, Caedus would still not give up without some kind of fight.

None of that would happen until the war was truly over. That would either mean that whoever took control of the GA government came to their senses and sued for peace, or soon they would have to launch another counter-offensive, next to Coruscant itself, to make that point abundantly clear. They would heal their wounds and rest up a bit as they waited and prepared for whatever would come next.

In the meantime, Admiral Cha Niathal had been rescued and asked that the leadership team be able to speak to Colonel Solo aboard the Leviathan.

So, Harry escorted the lot of them to the containment infirmary on the Leviathan. Along the way, his retinue, including Jacen's parents and the rest of their combined family, most of whom had never been on the Leviathan before, were in absolute awe of the technology and the efficiency of the ships operations and what looked like a small city in space.

Harry informed them that he would awaken Jacen from stasis but that his force powers were being blocked and that he would remain mostly immobile behind a level ten containment field for everyone's safety, including frankly his own. He also would leave them alone to speak with him and said he would not partake, he simply did not wish to see him or speak to him. Harry privately thought, that would ping at the power-mad little boy's dignity just fine, knowing that the Emperor who captured him had no time or interest in seeing him. That was how much he mattered.

...

As hoped, a few days later, a single ISD-2, the Anakin Solo ironically enough, appeared in orbit of Fondor, with Admiral Nek Bwua'tu commanding. He announced the surrender of the GA to the Jedi Coalition.

The Second Galactic Civil War was over.

[...]

The Jedi Coalition disbanded, with their constituencies returning to their natural places. Admiral Niathal, briefly but temporarily resumed the role of Head of State for the GA to begin getting things back into order again; accompanied by the Jedi Order and Admiral Daala.

Admiral Niathal stayed in power as Chief just long enough to ensure that power transitioned back to normal smoothly for everyone else involved, then she announced her resignation and retirement. Former Admiral Natasi Daala was elected the new Chief of State for the Galactic Alliance. She had been deemed to be a good compromise candidate among all the different factions both those they were allied with and those that still opposed them, to which she still had close ties such as the Imperial Remnant. They all hoped to host a Unification Summit in the near future to begin to set things right between all of them.

At this point, Harry and the AE just bowed out of the entire thing. Resolved once again to allow them to handle it as an internal matter. He was reluctant to actually release Colonel Solo into their hands only for fear they would bungle the whole thing and somehow he would go free and start havoc again. But, his hands were tied by diplomacy and politics. Remanding him to their government now that they've properly re-formed a new one, was the right thing to do. So it was that the AE went back to business as usual. Only now with a vastly larger territory to bring order to. Therefore, he would focus on that for a while and keep one eye on what the GA was doing.

...

Since it was time to turn his attention to the newly grown Avalon Empire Protectorate and because he had to provide for local security patrols and sector defenses, he decided this would be the time to begin building the new Cruisers and Corvette's that he wanted to make to gradually replace the Destiny Mk II's in that role. Therefore he issued those instructions to the shipyards back home and told the Admiral's to begin replacing them as they come into service and to begin an immediate drawdown of the remaining Destiny fleets to an average one per world in the other Cluster Sectors of the Empire, and send the remainder to Triangulum for immediate re-deployment as planetary and sector defense, so they could rapidly secure all of this new territory.

In the course of doing so, Harry sequestered one of the uninhabited barren worlds back in the Anoat sector, and had all conventional warships larger than a star fighter impounded from each new system or world as they replaced security on them; and sent to a mothball fleet or ship graveyard of sorts. He would collect them and determine if there was anything of value there, recycle the materials or potentially gift some of them back to the GA as a reward for getting their act together and behaving themselves, if they do. If not, maybe Han or Luke would like their own personal fleet.

Erstwhile as they did that, they also stepped up production of the AE T-HFR security droids as well as T-Stargate's to deploy them to each new world as they transitioned security, thereby beginning to bring each of them, one at a time, into the AE Protectorate's modern age for the galaxy. This would take a long time. But, as usual, they started with the Capitol's and most strategically important and populated worlds first. And while they did all of that, they took a detailed survey of each planetary government and the standard of living of the people; from which they would begin a program of improving the lives of any oppressed and exploited people.

The Hutt's themselves would have to accept new practices. For example, once the AE had successfully transitioned security throughout the new territories, slavery would be universally forbidden and the worlds that currently depended on it to function, would be reorganized and economic resources re-deployed as necessary. People would eventually learn that having been born in the Outer Rim no longer would mean the same thing as being born in a back-water cesspool, at least for those parts that are within the AE.

That would of course, begin to put pressure on the non-AE worlds of the galaxy such as the GA, the IR, the Hapan's, and the Mandos, to all clean up their act as well. The people of other regions would eventually notice the differences between their quality of life and treatment by their government.

In 2030 (43 ABY), the GA's Unification Summit was finally held.

Even though there was peace, there were still tensions as neither the Imperial Remnant or the Confederation had yet re-joined the Galactic Alliance. The AE was invited to attend the Summit as an observer, but would not have a vote in the proceedings. So, Harry, accompanied by Ambassador Creevey and Governor Entwhistle attended as observers.

During the first public meeting of the three major powers in 43.5 ABY, it was noticed by Luke Skywalker and other attendees that all three Heads of State—Jagged Fel of the Imperial Remnant, Natasi Daala of the Galactic Alliance, and Turr Phennir of the Confederation—all had strong ties to the former Galactic Empire. Daala and Phennir served as an Admiral and General, respectively, while Fel was the son of leading Imperial fighter ace, Soontir Fel.

A committee was set up by the Galactic Alliance Senate to prepare for the Unification Summit. It was headed by Bothan Senator Tiurrg Drey'lye.

As a result of the summit the former factions united once again under Head of State Natasi Daala and the core of the galaxy was once again united. How long that would last who knew.

One of Chief Daala's first acts was to charge Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker with dereliction of duty and was exiled from the Jedi Order and Coruscant, being replaced as acting Grand Master by Kenth Hamner. During the trials of the war criminals, Jacen Solo, aka Darth Caedus was sentenced to death and the sentence was carried out immediately to ensure no chance of some conspiracy to escape their clutches. All that Harry tried to do for the Solo's by bringing him in alive ended for naught. Of course it did bring an immediate end to the war.

Another act was that she reluctantly was forced to bring her friend, the Mon Calamari Cha Niathal, to trial for her actions during the war. Niathal, rather than be acquitted for admitting blame for the damage caused by Jacen Solo or destroyed for sticking to her guns, chose to commit suicide instead. She was granted a funeral with full military rights by Chief Daala, who was affected heavily by Niathal's death.

Luke departed as ordered, with his son Ben choosing to accompany him, both trying to exorcise demons and come to an understanding of what made Jacen turn to the dark side. They took Mara's ship, the Jade Shadow, on their journey and turned down an offer of assistance from Harry, but kept his communicator just in case.

While they were doing that, the growing slave revolts erupting all around the galaxy, as well as the tension between the New Jedi Order and Daala's government, led the Chief of State to order swift repression against the slave movements. Jagged Fel, who had successfully convinced the Moff Council to unify with the Galactic Alliance, was disgusted by Daala's willingness to have anyone who revolted against the Alliance killed and even innocent people like journalist Madhi Vaandt who was killed during the revolts by Mandalorans working for Daala. Although he promised her Imperial troops to help destroy the revolts, he decided to withdraw the Remnant from the Summit as he wasn't willing to unite under the authority of Daala who had finally shown her true colors. He was also disgusted by the fact that she blamed the Jedi for the revolts even though she had no proof and it was only motivated by her hatred of them.

And that was about how long that unification lasted.

Harry was rather busy stretching his legs and his Empires arms around the vast new territory they acquired. The Capitol was working on sending him another twenty-thousand Destiny Mk II's, gradually of course, as soon as they could cycle their assignments around and replace them with the new Cruisers and Corvettes. But, Harry had already dispatched the remaining four-hundred fifty-five of Triangulo's reserves out to the field, five each as was still the Triangulum galaxy norm, to the sector Capitols, other major worlds, and protection of key infrastructure. This would include major shipyards used for building conventional warships (as well as civilian ships) at Sullust (Cruisers), Eriadu (Cruisers), Sluis Van (Imperial-class ships and Cruisers), Patriim (Imperial-class ships), Rothana (Cruisers), and Marleyvane (Cruisers). And of course the AE now controlled the entire territory encompassing the Maw. That would be convenient.

The main fleet task forces stayed right where they originally were too, with only the Leviathan and the Nineteenth fleet remaining in reserve at Triangulo until the new three fleets arrived to rebuild the reserves.

Whilst he was working on that he would occasionally get reports (rarely from Luke and Ben) but, most often from other contacts in the Jedi temple, Lando, and occasionally from Han and Leia who were also out on their own soul-searching expedition.

Along the way, Luke and Ben had discovered a few shocking things about Jacen's journeys and had found themselves headed to the Sinkhole space station in the Maw. That being the case and Luke remembering all too well Harry's admonitions about the place and the entire Maw issue, he contacted Harry to let him know they'd be visiting there while they followed the trail Jacen had followed that made him turn to the dark side.

So, Harry decide he would attend this in person with Luke and Ben; while unbeknownst to him and simultaneously with his trip, the Jedi Order were planning a coup of their own to overthrow Daala from the Presidency of the GA.

Harry decided to travel light for this one and comm'd Hermione to let him know about the dangerous personal mission he would be undertaking so that she wouldn't be caught off guard if something went wrong. She understood, they had discussed this sort of eventuality for years. They both suspected that this journey to Sinkhole might finally get him the answers he needed about Abeloth and the prison. As powerful as he was, not being sensitive to or adept in the Force it was not a place for him to venture there on his own agenda. But, following one such as Luke, that was another matter.

Also, Harry brought along the Tano Dojo, who were among his people the best equipped to help him and cover his back in there. Ahsoka always said she wanted to be a part of the final solution there when it came down to it. His Knights didn't have to be asked twice, and the Disciples of Twilight that were on her team weren't going to let the rest of their team and friends go without them.

So it was, that Harry accompanied by the Tano Dojo and another sixty-four Knights, met Luke and Ben at Sinkhole station aboard one of their Knight Carriers.

Apparently this was all well and good because on their journey, the Skywalkers had gotten the attentions of and entangled with yet another Sith order, who apparently were seeking some of the same answers they were. In their case most likely to yield the power they would find. Then, Harry knew he was on the right track.

Unfortunately Harry got there too late. He thought it was understood that they should wait for him before boarding. But, they didn't. Apparently they boarded as soon as they arrived and began investigating.

When Harry and team got there, they were met by Jedi Master Jaina Solo who had just arrived there herself aboard one of their Infiltrator fighter craft. She had felt a telepathic cry for help in the force from Ben and also felt Luke's presence and tracked them there.

The ten of them, Harry, the Tano Dojo, and Master Solo, boarded Sinkhole station looking for clues. Harry was able to access the stations onboard security systems and piece together a series of events that happened there. Luke and Ben, and a young Sith called Lady Vestara Khai apparently accompanying them, were trying to follow Jacen's trail. Much of the images made no sense to any of them, some of them appeared to Harry as ghosts would have, but to the recording devices they appeared to make no sound. So, if they spoke to the Skywalkers, the recordings didn't catch it. The station security did catch the next thing they did which was to get back aboard the Jade Shadow and head off to the prison planet where Harry knew Abeloth would be.

"Damn it Luke. Why couldn't you at least wait for me? What is the rush?!" Harry exclaimed out loud. Ahsoka appeared to be the only one who understood the undertone of what Harry meant by that. Jaina and the others just sort of shrugged.

After they conversed for a bit they decided to head to the planet themselves and work together to investigate the mystery, when just as they started there aboard their respective ships, they were attacked by a Sith Meditation Sphere that was guarding the passage to the planet. Master Solo engaged the Sith Ship in a dogfight and finally after launching several baradium missiles, the Sith Ship fled from the engagement. By the time Harry's people would react to launch their own fighters, it was over.

They continued on to the planet, Harry's sensors picking up the landed Jade Shadow, one life sign aboard-Luke; so they landed nearby. Something was blocking scans deeper onto the planet.

When they arrived they found Luke strapped to a bed in the medbay of the Jade Shadow apparently in some kind of coma or something. Luke suddenly awoke screaming. This startled the team into action, especially Jaina, who immediately lent her force healing presence to help Luke heal from whatever ailed him. As he recovered, he was glad to see Harry and Jaina and that they had brought some help.

He had been mind walking to a realm called beyond shadows (new skills he learned on the journey to discover what happened to Jacen) and there he saw and spoke to Jacen's spirit and tried to learn if there was anything he could tell him about how to defeat Abeloth. In the course of doing so he ended up fighting Abeloth along with an unnamed Sith who showed up out of nowhere to help him, in the realm of beyond shadows.

Luke explained what just happened:

Jacen was unable to help him, but then the Dark Man from Jacen's visions that started him down this path in the first place arrived. Without revealing his true identity, he informed Luke that he was a Sith, and that he was there to help Skywalker defeat Abeloth.

At that moment, Abeloth arrived out of the Mists of Forgetfulness. The Grand Master attempted to reach for his lightsaber, but as he was beyond shadows, he did not have one. Luke then attempted to blast Abeloth with Force energy, but she had already unleashed a barrage of Force lightning that passed through the Sith and slammed into the Jedi.

Once he had recovered, the two began to pummel Abeloth with blasts of Force energy until she began to fall into the Lake itself. During the battle, Luke's sense of time was warped, so what seemed like a lifetime could have been a blink of an eye. As Abeloth was about to fall into the water, Luke ran to her side and began to attack her physically (or what passed for physical beyond shadows–the combat was between their Force essences, and as such there were no physical injuries). Luke began to gain the upper hand over Abeloth, and the two began to grapple as Abeloth's tentacles lashed Luke's face. One of her tentacles hit Luke in the right eye, blinding him in that eye. Then the Sith joined the fight, jabbing his fingers in Abeloth's stomach and causing a black spray to erupt. As the three tumbled across the surface of the Lake, Abeloth attempted to Force-blast the Sith off of her, but her efforts were in vain.

Suddenly the Sith turned on Luke and Abeloth, using a Force draining technique to steal both of their powers. In response, Luke bashed the Sith's knee and threw him off the other two, dropping him to the surface of the Lake. Luke threatened to release Abeloth if the Sith did not stop, and the Sith consented despite his words otherwise. Luke held fast to Abeloth as the Sith continued to drain her for what seemed like days, but it suddenly felt like seconds as the Sith began to scream in anguish. Force energy, black and shiny, began to seep from the Sith's wounds across the Lake in a boiling, oily slick that caused the water to steam and hiss. Luke realized that the Sith had in fact not betrayed Luke–the effort of holding Abeloth down was taking as much from Luke as the draining was from the Sith.

Abeloth chose that moment to rip her head free of Luke's hold and try to grab anything she could reach with her teeth, but Luke grabbed her in a choke hold and merged his presence even more with the entity as he told the Sith to keep going. As the Sith continued, Abeloth burst into action again, sending the three of them tumbling across the surface of the Lake. Even as they rolled, the Sith kept his hand buried in Abeloth's chest despite the black Force energy still pouring from his wounds. As they rolled, Abeloth seemed to be directing them towards the shore, so Luke pushed off a rock and sent them tumbling back towards the Lake's center. At that point, Abeloth simply vanished–taking the Sith's hand with her–leaving his stump of an arm pointing at Luke and now draining energy from the Grand Master. Once again believing the Sith was about to betray him, Luke prepared a Force blast, but he stopped his attack and pointed his arm towards the end of the Lake, near the Mists of Forgetfulness. Abeloth was backing into the Mists, with the Sith's wrist still protruding from her chest and dark energy still pouring from the limb.

The Sith tried to use the Force to pull his hand back to him, but Luke realized that she had only fled because she was actually dying–and that her only option now was to attack. She teleported back to the duo, slamming a ball of tentacles deep in the Sith's chest and then Luke's as well when he tried to help. Despite her attack, Luke continued to press the offensive, grappling with her mercilessly until his elbow simply pushed through Abeloth's head. Simultaneously, near the Font of Power, Ben killed another of Abeloth's avatars with a shikkar. With the death of her last two bodies and the destruction of her Force essence, Abeloth died. Her body fell away pulling the tentacles with her and leaving the Sith and Luke holding pieces of her essence. The two collapsed, the tentacles having left gaping holes in their chests. Luke fell unconscious as he began to scream, causing his physical body back on the Jade Shadow to scream as well.

"Is Ben alright, Uncle Luke?" asked Jaina.

"I believe so. I can definitely feel his force presence. But, I think he was busy fighting his version of Abeloth in the material world, the same time I was fighting her in the realm beyond shadows." said Luke, aching but trying to sit up now that his restraints were removed.

"Come on, let's go see to him and his friend Vestara Khai, and I will tell you what happened along the way." said Luke.

As they walked to Abeloth's cave, Luke told the story of how they arrived at the point they discovered him.

He said that he and Ben and Vestara Khai (how she got involved he said they would wait to tell that tale another time).

"But, apparently we were being manipulated by Abeloth to come here. Sorry, Harry, we didn't leave our force-blockers on because we were trying to follow Jacen's trail in the force. We didn't want them to get in our way." continued Luke.

"Really, she was luring Ben and Vestara here in a scheme of hers where she wanted to force them to Bath in the Font of Knowledge and drink from the Font of Power respectively; with Ben to be the new Prince of the Light, and Vestara to be the new Daughter of the Night, and in her mind therefore recreate the Family of the Ones, with her resuming the role previously filled by the Father." said Luke.

"So, you've learned the full tale of the Ones then?" asked Harry.

"Oh, yes. We've picked up quite a few interesting things on this journey. Well, at least we survived... barely..., again. Anyway, continuing..." said Luke, as he still achingly walked toward the cave.

"Well, here we are." said Luke.

Just as he said that they heard a young voice holler out, "Dad, is that you? Are you okay?" yelled Ben, walking out of the cave with Vestara behind him.

"Just fine Ben. Looks like we both made it out of this one okay." said Luke.

"When did Jaina and Emperor Harry get here? Who are all these other people?" asked Ben.

"Ah, well Harry brought us a rescue team. Luckily we managed it by the skin of our teeth anyway. And as far as I know, Jaina also came mounting her own rescue when she heard your cries for help in the force." said Luke, while Jaina nodded along indicating he was right.

"I will tell you what just happened to me after you tell us what just happened to you." said Luke.

Therefore Ben, with some help from Vestara related the events they just experienced:

While Vestara believed the only way to combat Abeloth was to use the Font of Power, Ben believed that together they could fight against her. Abeloth appeared and used her tentacles to restrict Ben. Ben attempted to fight back but without using the Force his blows were useless, until he was freed when Vestara used Force lightning against Abeloth. Ben felt the Darkness of the Font of Power and stopped Vestara's lightning assault.

Ben carried Vestara until they were no longer within range of the Font of Power, then Abeloth appeared again as her avatar, Lady Korelei, and ignited her lightsaber. Ben completely opened himself to the Force, shielding himself from the Font's power, instead drawing on the power of his loved ones throughout the galaxy, in the hope of the Jedi teachings, the promise of the future and his faith that Vestara would embrace the light, and blasted Abeloth with Force Light, however she still kept coming. Vestara again expressed the need for the Font's power but Ben still believed that together they could defeat Abeloth. Ben used the Force to lift a nearby broken pillar and sent it spinning at Abeloth, while Vestara fired more Force lightning as a diversion. The Keshiri avatar caught the lightning with her palm and dissipated it, but was struck in the back of the head by Ben's pillar, spraying blood across the courtyard. Despite the grievous injury Abeloth still stood and continued forward. Ben attempted to attack again but Abeloth sent him crashing against a pillar. As Ben faded into unconsciousness the last thing he saw was Vestara retreating to the Font of Power.

Ben awoke to Vestara screaming for him, and he immediately sprang up to save her. Ben found Vestara locked in hand to hand combat with Abeloth within a cage of Force lightning. Vestara tried to use Force lightning to keep her opponent at bay but Abeloth used her tentacles to keep Vestara bound. Ben noticed a shikkar on the Korelei avatar's belt and without hesitating used the Force to plunge it through Abeloth's back, into her heart. Abeloth fell to her knees and freed Vestara as she tried to reach for the dagger in her back, but Ben used the Force to break off the handle as Vestara shot Abeloth with another barrage of Force lightning. Ben used the Force to drag Abeloth away from the Font of Power, and grabbed the pillar from earlier and dropped it onto the writhing avatar. Vestara summoned more of the Font's power and intended to blast Abeloth again but she was stopped by Ben, who told her that Abeloth was dead.

"Yes, and it was at the same time that I and the Sith who came to help me in beyond shadows defeated her force presence as well. Defeating her, I think, for good." said Luke.

"How did you all end up separated as you were and fighting Abeloth on two planes, like that?" asked Harry.

"When we first arrived here, Abeloth greeted us herself, in the flesh as it were. She made no pretense about her intentions with Ben and Vestara and told me that I was free to leave, that there was nothing I could do and that I was powerless on this plane to stop her." said Luke.

"I took a chance, believing she had said too much. I was guided by the force. I understood her meaning even if she did not understand her slip. Perhaps she did not know that I had recently learned how to mind walk and about beyond shadows. I took it on faith and had confidence that Ben and Vestara working together could fight her and at least hold her off long enough for me to go fight her and hopefully defeat her in beyond shadows. So, I simply appeared resolute and agreed, telepathically communicating to Ben what my intention was. I returned to the ship while Ben and Vestara followed Abeloth to the cave." said Luke.

"I immediately injected myself with stim-paks and pain-killers to regulate my body in the material plane and strapped myself in and sunk into the realm beyond shadows. First seeking out Jacen and confronting him over the truth and seeing if he could help me with knowledge how to defeat Abeloth. He could not. But, I learned one thing interesting. The entire thing was his effort to prevent a vision he saw as a young man of a Dark Man who would someday take the throne as a Sith Lord and rule all of the galaxy. He believed he was taking steps to prevent that. I won't get into the rest of that right now." said Luke.

"Wow. What do you think will happen now?" asked Jaina.

"When I was waking, Abeloth's body was starting to sink into the Lake of Apparitions as it shrank. I believe, that with the death of Abeloth, the Family of the Ones finally met its end–a process begun almost 65 years ago, with the death of the Father, the Son, and the Daughter. An event that I believe you, Ms. Tano were present for." said Luke.

"Indeed Grand Master Skywalker. I could tell you many tales of the past and of your father before he turned. He was my master when I was a padawan." replied Ahsoka.

"Yes, we should talk and get caught up some time. You've been keeping her from me haven't you Harry?" asked Luke.

"Not at all Luke. It is she who came to me and wished not to be found by the Jedi or the Sith, having a general distrust for organized religion as it were." said Harry.

"Yes, well Jaina to finish answering your question. I believed that by defeating Abeloth, we would prevent the rise of the Sith forever, and that we would restore the course of the Current of the Force, as the Thuruhts of the eldest Killik hives who were present when Abeloth was imprisoned, believed the Ones were meant to do. But Jacen informed me, that if we did defeat Abeloth, we would not in fact prevent the any rise of a Sith–but that we would simply prevent his vision from coming true, which was something he was immensely hopeful for and felt he would gain some measure of final peace from, if we would succeed." said Luke.

"There is one more thing that I'd like to share with just you Harry, and family. So Ben and Jaina you can stay and hear this too." said Luke, as that group moved off in one direction while the others moved off to the side to give them some privacy.

Speaking more quietly and making sure no force presence was eavesdropping, Luke said: "Jacen also told me what he really saw in the Pool of Knowledge—the vision that had ultimately caused him to turn to the dark side and become Darth Caedus: he had seen the Dark Man on the Throne of Balance, yes, but what he had tried hardest to prevent was his vision of his daughter Allana standing next to the Dark Man, the Sith on the Throne." said Luke, "And the unnamed Dark Man in question was the one who showed up in beyond shadows to help me fight Abeloth. That was the last thing Jacen could tell me, since as the Dark Man appeared, Jacen faded away."

"And as we know, through our dealings with Vestara and her Sith order from Kesh, there are still plenty of other Sith around. Far more than the old rule of two we were raised to believe in. An entire secret society raised as Sith. Vestara and Ben tell me that Vestara has forsaken the ways she was brought up in and would like to join the Jedi temple and now train as a Jedi-even though she still seems to hold some loyalty and regard for some of them-which makes me wary. But, for all that she has done and sacrificed to help us, and for her friendship and loyalty to Ben, she will get her chance." said Luke.

"As for the rest, our good friend Emperor Potter and I here are going to have a nice chat after we're all rested up. To finish a conversation we started long ago about this place, and see how we can seal up these damnable fonts and secure this planet and all that is associated with it, to keep it out of anyone else's hands in the future. Isn't that right Harry?"

"Absolutely." replied Harry, feeling like they finally had gotten somewhere, and surprised at how he personally never had to break so much as a fingernail doing it.

While they were still out of earshot of Vestara and Ben had gone over to join her, Harry said: "By the way Luke, you do realize that the planet Kesh now falls deep within my territory? Any time you want to take a trip there let me know. In either case, I will be visiting there soon myself." said Harry.

"It might be a very long time before I can discover the secrets of all the planets in my new territory, but as I do, I plan to be cleaning things up. I recently heard that Kesh might be an interesting place to take a look at."

A/N:

\- I think I keep forgetting to mention that I have posted links on my profile to Star Wars galaxy maps that have lines drawn on them to illustrate the borders of the AE territory in Triangulum


	36. Chapter 36

This is the final chapter of Part One, gird yourself for it.

Chapter 36

Timeframe: 2030 (44 ABY, concluded).

After everyone returned safely to their respective domiciles, Harry quickly issued orders to secure certain places.

He ordered a new invention, or rather a new application of his existing satellite defense grid concept which would be a "self-healing satellite defense and blockade grid"-designed for quarantining an entire planet. It consisted of two layers of sixty-four satellites, one set with their shields aimed outward and another set with their shields aimed inward to the planets atmosphere. Between the two rings of shields were thirty-six spare satellites that could replace one in either ring, as well as the eight molecular constructor satellites to build new ones as needed; for a total of one-hundred seventy-two satellites.

One of these went to Kesh to quarantine the Sith there, and another went to the Maw Planet to quarantine it. He likewise sent an ordinary satellite defense grid to Sinkhole station. All of them also were sent a five-ship unit of Destiny to maintain positive control and patrol each location. He would return to finish the job in a more comprehensive way with the Maw Planet later, but for now all of those places would be locked down and off-limits. He also sent an HFR team to Sinkhole station to staff it and to eradicate any vestiges of the transients who in the past came and went there as part of their 'mind walking' studies. None of those places would be playgrounds for curious force sensitive's any longer. Harry sent a message to this effect to Luke for the Jedi Order as well through official channels to all the other major governments, via his Ambassador.

Not long after that Harry got word that while he was off with Luke in the Maw, the Jedi Order executed a plan thought up by Master Corran Horn to depose and arrest Chief of State Daala. The plan, called "Plan Delta," succeeded. Acting Grand Master Kenth Hamner died in an effort to attempt to prevent the rest of the Order from carrying out the plan, and Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne was made acting Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Daala's position was replaced by a ruling Triumvirate for the GA that consisted of Senator Haydnat Treen, General Merratt Jaxton (later replaced by former Chief of Staff, Wynn Dorvan), and acting Grand Master Sebatyne. And naturally, Luke Skywalker's exile was rescinded.

After some time getting things resettled in the GA, with peace appearing to want to set in for real for a while. Luke returned to his post as Grand Master of the Jedi Order and immediately moved to call for new elections for GA Chief and removed the Order from its role in the triumvirate. Wynn Dorvan was elected. Furthermore, knowing that the Senate wanted the Jedi Order off of Coruscant, and himself wishing to not have the Jedi Order remain or once again become a central figure in GA politics. The Jedi Order would move permanently to a new star system and planet given to it whole by the Avalon Empire Protectorate, and henceforth would form their own independent government, with autonomous self-rule ostensibly under the military protection of the AE since their new world would now lay safely within its borders.

The planet was Apatros in the Savareen sector, just inside AE space, near the Corellian Run. It was a barren world abandoned over five hundred years ago, five hundred years after Darth Bane once called it home. Harry had it terraformed to a paradise planet for the Jedi. It was small, moon-sized and orbited a dim orange star. But for as small as the Jedi Order was (a little more than one hundred) and at the pace it would likely grow, that might be all the world of their own they would ever need. There was also still a serviceable amount of Cortosis leftover in the mines abandoned over five hundred years ago, so the Jedi could sell the right to mine that as a means to generate independent income for themselves.

In the future the Jedi could choose to ally with or not, anyone they would choose, based on what they believed was right or wrong; and not because they were the client organization of any one government. It might appear that they were trading one client government for another, but for all they knew and experienced throughout the rest of the history of the galaxy they figured they might as well give the AE a chance, at least they hadn't screwed them over yet. And they knew that under their protection, they would be safe there. Not to mention, the bulk of the Jedi Order, especially 'the Sword of the Jedi' Jaina Solo and a number of other hawkish members, were beginning to rather like the recent proactive anti-Sith stance that Emperor Potter and the AE were beginning to take a more active role in.

Ahsoka Tano, along with her Tano Dojo would also move to the new Jedi Headquarters and Praxeum on Apatros to assist them, as well as it would give Luke and Leia and their families time to hear first-hand stories of their grandfather and his contemporaries from when Ahsoka was a padawan. That and Ahsoka was starting to feel her age and wanted to take a more 'retired' role, back to simply being an advisor, now both to the AE as well as the Jedi. That also had the advantage of cross-fertilizing some knowledge and training between the Jedi, the Imperial Knights and the Disciples of Twilight who were part of Tano's Dojo. There was an opportunity for the Jedi Order to develop a broader base of knowledge and training repertoire in their Praxeum and for passing that down to future generations with their holocrons updated with the additional knowledge.

...

The quarantine of Kesh caused quite a stir. At least on Kesh. It happened to catch the patchwork armada of several dozen vessels it had obtained through piracy over the years-which it had been according to former Kesh Sith, Vestara Khai apparently preparing to take on some sort of invasion to expand in the near future. The "fleet" included twenty-seven ChaseMaster Frigates, several Corporate Sector Gunships, several Corporate Sector Authority Frigates, two EE-104 Fisheye Stealth Vessels, a number of converted bulk freighters, a few other old scavenged and repaired warships, six Javelin star fighters, seventy-four GAT-12j Skipray Blastboats, and the Sith Meditation Sphere Ben and Vestara were both briefly entangled with and that they encountered in the Maw. On the surface they identified their Capitol city Tahv and altogether about ten thousand Sith.

(A/N: at this time, on Kesh this also included all twenty-four of the dark Nightsister Clan of witches from Dathomir, which Vestara helped her order capture, after which she herself stayed with Luke and Ben as a stipulation to Luke's agreeing to a temporary alliance with the Sith against Abeloth...which is how she ended up traveling with them thereafter...which said impromptu alliance itself never came to anything (in my retconned version of events) since Luke, Ben, and Vestara, with the help simply of the Sith from beyond shadows, defeated her themselves, after they gave the Sith fleet the slip).

To say that Grand Lord Darish Vol and High Lord Sarasu Taalon, et al. were a bit surprised, was an understatement. They then knew for certain that Vestara had betrayed them. After the AE fleet deployed the satellite grid and quarantined them, they sent down to the surface a standard old imperial message buoy that would make clear the current situation. That went something like this (paraphrasing):

"In case you have not been paying attention to recent events. The entire sector of space that includes Kesh, your formerly secret world of Sith, where you have been planning and readying your future war of conquest-is now part of the Avalon Empire Protectorate. And as such, you will henceforth live under Alteran law as do all other worlds in our space. One of those laws is, thou shalt not abuse your super-natural powers to oppress the weak. Another is, thou shalt not raise your young to grow up believing it is right to use their super-natural powers to oppress the weak, nor train them to do so. Nor may you engage in piracy and build secret fleets of warships, hell bent on invading other worlds for your mad schemes of obtaining power. In short, your entire world, your society, and your way of thinking, is under arrest. House arrest."

"Kesh is now quarantined, both protected from external threat as well as blockaded from any departures of your world through space, by science and technology so far in advance of yours that you couldn't understand it if we handed you the manuals. We trust that you have the necessary resources for at least your basic necessities there on the planet for the ongoing care and general welfare of your people. We will return to deal more directly with you when we have more time. We recommend that you use the intervening time to re-think your world-view and your future plans. As they will not include galactic conquest or domination. Do not attempt to launch any ships into space or any higher than one hundred thousand feet within your atmosphere. You have been warned."

So, naturally they tested that; and after observing a massive orbital shield absorb all the damage from their wing of seventy-four Skipray Blastboat heavy fighters, as if it were nothing. They watched very powerful plasma beams erupt from the same satellites, incinerate each and every one of them with one shot each, like it was no effort at all. They were minus one full wing of Blastboats, and stuck on the surface sucking their thumbs, or whatever angry and frustrated Sith lords do with their now copious spare time.

...

Harry met with Luke and a number of other Masters of the Jedi Order, along with Ahsoka Tano-to get a history lesson. He wanted to know all that they knew about Sith. Not their abilities or beliefs. He meant throughout history, where had they been located? Where are or were their strongholds? Why? Because new Sith keep cropping up from these old places and he planned to investigate every last one of them and search for any more lingering Sith and round them up like he had begun doing at Kesh.

"The entire Esstran sector in the Stygian Caldera Nebulae (at grid coordinate R-5) was the home of the original Sith empires, including twenty-two star systems and one-hundred twenty habitable worlds, crossing six trade-routes, including the Sith home world Korriban. The sector capital is Ziost." answered Master Corran Horn, who had always been one himself to try to keep up with such things.

"Do any of the other galactic governments claim that sector? The GA?, The IR?, the Hapan's, a randy group of Pirates?" asked Harry.

"It actually is considered part of GA space and before that the NR, the GE, the OR, and so forth. But, you are right in what I believe you are implying; since the ancient days of the Sith empire, it has only been inhabited by pirates and other Sith upstarts, criminals looking for a place to hide, other malcontents, and so forth. It doesn't even have it's own official sector governor; the closest to it was Grand Moff Tarkin of the GE during the Rebellion era when he was handed control of the entire Outer Rim over-sector." said Leia, being the most knowledgeable of such things in the room.

Harry asked "Why is it that if you know of all these places that had both ancient and even recent Sith activity, with buried secrets for newbie's to discover and exploit, that those places aren't placed firmly under the government thumb, or monitored, or controlled, blown to smithereens, something? Why is it you all act surprised when new Sith pop up every few years to take the place of the last ones? If they have an entire sector of history and resources to go learn their trade in secret waiting for their opportunity?" asked Harry, sounding rather incredulous.

"The Jedi Order itself has never been a government with the resources to do all those things you suggest. I'm not sure the Old Order would've done it anyway, but even they only had a couple thousand Jedi in the galaxy; and not the resources to do that." added Luke. "They or we, would need the resources of the government to do that, and the government when it wasn't controlled by a Sith in the first place, was just happy that whatever Sith was causing the recent trouble had been put down and spent their resources on rebuilding whatever else was important. Like the GA just did after the Yuuzhan Vong war for example." said Luke.

Harry just frowned at the answer and waited for Luke to continue.

"I'm not making excuses for them or for ourselves. Just explaining how I see it. I know that throughout my tenure, even at our best of times, when Leia was Chief of State or other strong allies were, who understand the dangers of the Sith, we could not have gotten the Senate to go along with funding such a campaign and maintaining it indefinitely." said Luke.

"Right. Okay. What if now, I say that my Empire is willing to foot the bill and put forth the resources to do that? Will the other governments support allowing me to do that, or would they just argue and fight with me over space they don't care to police themselves, that no one honest is bothering to use? Could I step in on this, or would I be wasting my time?" asked Harry.

"I don't know. I think there are some who are weary enough of the Sith to support the idea. Others may see it as the AE trying to just expand yet again from more GA space. I'm not saying that is your intent. Although I will frankly say that it does appear that way to many. For my part, I could care less, especially about these untamed wild lands so to speak that no one is looking after anyway, like you said. It is high time someone did." said Leia.

"Why don't Luke, Saba, and I, go speak to Wynn Dorvan and see what he thinks about it on your behalf?" said Leia.

"That would be great. Thanks." said Harry.

...

While Leia was making plans to do that, Harry sat down privately with Luke and once again asked him to keep secret, what he had to tell him. At this point the secrecy is mostly not to spook everyone else out about his people and his intentions. Certainly if Luke ever felt that where Harry and the AE were going was in the wrong direction, he would not hold him to keeping the secrets.

Yet, it was now time for Harry to share with him the full story of the history of the Alterans, the Avalon Empire, and truly why he came to the galaxy in the first place. Their primary mission there. The same story, with more detail, that he essentially told Ahsoka Tano when she first sought him out and then came aboard with the program.

[...] an hour later...

"To tell the truth I'd already guessed part of it. Not that I had any real proof. Nor do we know all that much fact about the Celestials from our history. But, I had suspected that you were in some way related to them. I thought that at least, you must be as a race, as old as them, to know some of the things we would expect only them to know. And to be able to do some of the things we only ascribed to their abilities. So, yes. I'm not too surprised." replied Luke.

"I guess you feel now is the time to come clean on some of that and to move more aggressively against the Sith as you've begun doing because Abeloth is destroyed and all that is left is to secure the fonts, or ethereal substrate from the higher plane as you called it?" continued Luke.

"That is basically it, yes. And now that the AE has full control of the Maw territory and all the ancient Celestial technology put in place to maintain it. I feel like we can finish that job and keep a lockdown on it. There are still things I don't know about how our cousins created this Force phenomenon in this galaxy by doing what they did. I would like to continue to study it too. Just in case there is more we need to know." said Harry.

"But, research has already shown that 'the Force' is not something we can or probably at this advanced age, should, try to undo or prevent from spreading in general. Despite the fact that it came into being unnaturally. Which to be honest was one of my concerns before ever arriving here." said Harry.

"But unless we get different readings when I go in to study the fonts themselves. I now believe that we can contain and prevent any future massive problems with it, a reoccurrence of the likes of an Abeloth or the Ones, for example. If we simply ensure that no other beings can directly and in person access the substrate itself." said Harry.

"It does continue to leak new energy from the higher plane into this galaxy in small quantities on an ongoing basis. But, we theorize that the actual act of having spread biologically into nearly all life in the galaxy through these symbiotic midichlorians, has actually managed to create a sustainable balance. In other words, usually it doesn't gather naturally into an extreme nexus the likes of an Abeloth for instance, no over-abundance in any one place, it is spread out almost evenly now throughout the galaxy." said Harry.

"The other thing which is still only a hypothesis, not quite a theory until I can study it in detail. Is that I don't actually think the two fonts are as diametrically opposed at the source as we had been led to believe. I think that is just a result of its initial manifestation into the original mother and her own demons and insecurities, which almost got out of control when it tried to possess her, which she then forcibly divided into two opposing sides." said Harry.

"I suspect that the original motive for the pool of nexus energy to become a sentient individual no longer drives anything that is going on, because of the evolution of the dissipation and dilution of the energy through midichlorians everywhere. And subsequently, I think that wherever the manifested super-natural abilities are used for either good or bad purpose, the motives are strictly coming from the individuals now. Especially since the last vestige of the original motive that lived on through Abeloth, has now been vanquished and there are no longer any more of 'the One's'." said Harry.

"Therefore, as I said at the start, I believe that our main objective needs to be to ensure, that no one else gets direct access to those fonts or the substrate. To prevent any further concentrations of the energy from forming and frankly possessing or taking over the mind and body of an individual. And that it is okay to continue to nurture and support Force sensitive adepts such as the Jedi, because your motives are to use the abilities for good and to help others. While we must continue to weed out, stop, and insomuch as possible, prevent any more Sith, whose motives are to use the abilities for bad and for personal gain." said Harry.

"It is a relief to know you don't want to put a stop to all of us Force users." said Luke, half kidding and half-serious. As he knew that Harry's studies and conclusions could have gone that way at some point if things had been different.

"Yes, of course. You're right to guess that I might've concluded that, had the evidence pointed that way, but that is not what I'm seeing. Remember also that our genetic study of this, while it did originate through un-natural causes, has since then actually imprinted itself permanently into the genome of almost all sentient life in this galaxy. It couldn't be undone if we had to. So, I am choosing to accept the observations that point to nature itself having gradually solved the problem over time, through beneficial evolution, as it normally does. And also, I think that if this were such an affront to the overall good order of the universe, that higher powers, which I know exist, would've stepped in on it." said Harry.

"That's good. I'd like to share with you more in the future about all of your observations and understanding of all of this. But, for now what actually is your plan to keep those fonts contained, or more contained than you have already?" asked Luke.

"Sure. Right now of course we've just locked up access in or out from space with our quarantine satellite network. But, I plan to ensure that Centerpoint and Sinkhole and Kessel get a good comprehensive overall and upgrades to keep them in good operating condition for another million years or more. The perpetual energy solution is still the best for that and I intend to keep the artificial Maw nebulae construct just like it is. Changing it now might actually disrupt the gravitational eddies in the neighboring sectors so I don't want to forcibly change all of that now." said Harry.

"Then, for the new. I plan to install a small, unmanned, fully-automated Alteran outpost on the planet itself, encasing the location on the planet where the substrate exists. Then inside that secure structure which would be further shielded and protected, I will build covers of a sort that will be made out of a material that I know of which can safely heat-sink, conduct and shunt the energy better than the original solution ever dreamed of. These caps will be literally lids of a sort down to a femtometer of distance from the surface of the substrate." said Harry.

"Even at that distance, microscopic particles of energy will continue to seep into the galaxy, albeit at a slower and more measurable and controlled pace than it does now. Thus further lessening the odds of future clusters of nexus energy forming to possess people. And the rest of the energy, you will hardly believe me I think, but my people understand the science behind this. We will actually shunt into an inverse quantum matrix that literally will perpetually power this new facility. Thus putting that portion of extra bleed off energy to good use in securing the rest of it." said Harry.

"Wow. You're right. I hardly believe it. If you can manipulate these energies at that level, why can't you just seal the rift itself, like the original Celestials wanted to do in the first place?" asked Like.

"Because the source of the energy, which is the background energy itself of the higher plane where all of our ascended beings live, has far greater energy potential than anything we can create on this side. It simply won't allow us to close it. It's a real tear and it's leaking, and the pressure for wont of a better word, from the other side, is just too great. That is why I devised this method. Thinking it would be the best compromise solution. I've often wondered why none of the ascended have bothered to close it from the other side." said Harry.

"Okay, that makes sense I guess. Not a scientist myself, remember. But, you reminded me of something else I wanted to ask you. Abeloth and the other beings like the Ones. If they are not like the other ascended beings that you described, how is it that they still had a strong living presence in the realm beyond shadows. Isn't that the same as the ascended plane you spoke of?" asked Luke.

"Ah. No. Good question though, I'm glad you asked it. You see, when a being ascends to the higher planes, there are actual levels if you will of those planes. For simplicity lets leave it at three levels, this one, the material plane, a place in the middle, higher than here but not at the highest plane, then the actual higher plane." said Harry.

"And believe it or not, I've actually encountered another being like this. One that had ascended but for its shall we say bad behavior, was forcibly partially descended by the power of the Other ascended. So, the being lived in between, still as pure energy, not on the higher plane, and still able to partially manifest itself into our material plane." said Harry.

"That is essentially, the same of what happened with the original 'Ones' and 'Abeloth'. In their case it was because of this tear and reaching nearly the same state, from the other direction. You see, the only way to truly ascend to the higher plane is either through your own enlightenment, and a few other secrets of your physical development that I am not supposed to just share whenever I feel like it, so unfortunately can't tell you-you need to develop on your own you see. -or- Another foolproof way is for one of the truly ascended beings to ascend you, to help you along." said Harry.

"Then, until this happened, and even we had no idea this could happen. And, you'll recall, it was because of those people experimenting with a way around the normal ascension process, that we had this 'un-natural' thing that occurred. Wherein they tore a hole directly into the dimension itself, where the higher plane exists. They were neither enlightened enough to ascend, nor were their physical bodies developed to the point it was capable of ascending, so they achieved some kind of mutated possession by the energy itself. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to understand it any better than that. I just want to prevent it from happening again." said Harry.

"So, what about what we call force-ghosts, like when we commune with the spirits of our dead masters and occasionally others like we do when I mind-walk beyond shadows. What are they really?" asked Luke.

"They are actually ascended beings. One's who did make it to the next level naturally, or with help by another ascended being. Now, not to confuse you but, you remember I said to keep it simple lets call it the three levels? Well in actuality there are many more than just three simple levels, or that is more than just one higher plane, and one in between. There are a number of in between levels, all of higher planes than this, and all in which one is considered ascended and living as pure energy." said Harry.

"When one ascends, they are not immediately enlightened enough to ascend to the highest of planes, but they are still living beings of pure energy, and higher than the material. Your force ghosts would be on one of those intermediate higher planes, with potential to ascend even higher over time. I only know this much, I cannot tell you precisely how they achieve that because I don't know or don't remember, or something. I feel like I should know, but other than the basic idea of how it works for some reason I can't explain it better than that. I do know that ascended beings are still, just as many of us are, still endeavoring to ascend even higher." said Harry.

"Anyway, these force-ghosts would be traveling down to the lowest plane possible from wherever they really are, to this plane you call beyond shadows that you can astral project your own soul too, so they can meet you half-way as it were, to commune with you. You see they can travel down to the lower planes easily enough, they just can't ascend higher than they individually are until they are ready to." said Harry.

"You sure seem to know a lot about this stuff. Why is that?" asked Luke.

"Sigh... that is a long story. Ask me again sometime and I might tell you. Also, some of it I've come into by having secret knowledge shared with my that I'm forbidden from sharing. So, I won't cross that line. But, I've given you enough to think about today I think. I will leave you with one final thought, because I suspect you wonder why you can't commune with anyone you want whenever you want, even when you know they have crossed over and ascended. That is because, ascended beings are not supposed to interfere with those of us living on the material plane at all. There are exceptions made, and there are those that break or bend the rules as well. Most of those rules are actually self-imposed by the highest order of ascended beings themselves. Some of it are rules that come from a bit higher up. I just wanted to leave you with that so that you don't frustrate yourself with your efforts in mind-walking. That ability itself is unusual and a rare talent even for people with your abilities or mine." said Harry.

"Okay, thanks. So, can you do that too? Astral project as you called it?" asked Luke.

"Yes, after a fashion. It is a bit different for us. If it makes you feel any better I would say your ability is a bit greater than ours in one way. In that you can reach into one of the higher planes at all and meet the ascended half-way. I've not discovered that ability in my people yet. However, we can astral project our souls to other places actually within the material realm, sort of a soul-walking type of experience wherein we could be almost anywhere else, naturally unknown to others in the material plane." said Harry.

"And as for ghosts. In our world, it is different. We have them, but true ghosts in our world are echoes of the spirits of individuals that have died but refused to move on, and they actually still exist and remain on the material plane, but unseen by everyone except those of us with enough zpe sensitivity to see them and speak to them. But, in that case we are not astral projecting ourselves, we are simply speaking to them in our normal waking material world as easily as you and I are speaking. It is they who are stuck here." said Harry.

"Interesting. So, do you astral project often?" asked Luke.

"Actually no. I've only done it a bit when I was younger and learning and practicing all of my abilities. I don't particularly like the disassociated feeling of it, and it leaves the physical body vulnerable. Just like you were when you mind-walked. I mean I have plenty of very safe places I can do so if I felt the need. But, like I said I don't really enjoy the sensation. And I haven't really any need to do it. It's also not a very common ability to learn among my people. It's just something we are capable of, so if we want to stretch our limits, you know, teach ourselves everything we can do, some of us will try to learn it. But, you wouldn't find it commonly done. In fact we have far easier ways to sneak around invisibly, unseen, unheard, unfelt in the material plane if we want to. Someday I may show you our phase-shifting technology and this handy cloak of invisibility that I have. But, I don't want to completely freak you out all at once." said Harry.

"It might be a bit too late for that my friend. You tell me your race is over sixty million years old and as a people were ancient before our ancients were young. We walk among the stars, true. But, you stride across galaxies, across the universe. I am, for insomuch as I can be at this stage in my career, a bit freaked out." said Luke.

"But, we're still friends and confidantes right?" asked Harry.

"Oh yes, if anything you've earned even more of my trust and admiration. But, still, a bit freaked out. It's not everyday you learn some of the things I just learned." said Luke.

"Great Luke. Let's keep working together. I am sure that over time I will be able to open you up to many more interesting things. As well as the people throughout the galaxy. It's just too unruly and unpredictable now. If we put all of our knowledge into the hands of anyone's reach in this galaxy, think of the wars we'd have then. So, just a little bit at a time, yes?" said Harry.

"Absolutely. I agree. I am honored to be among the first you've shared some of this with. Thank you." said Luke.

...

Leia let them know that she and Saba had arranged for Harry to meet with Chief Dorvan to discuss his questions or proposals regarding dealing with Sith.

So, Harry took the lot of them in one of their Destiny cruisers, directly to Coruscant. Because it would only take them a few hours traveling on one of his ships. They met with Chief Dorvan and he seemed open to the ideas but had questions.

"Why are you suddenly so interested in going after Sith?" asked Chief Dorvan.

"The Maw planet where the source of the overly-powerful dark force entity Abeloth was, is secure and will be even more secure soon. The threat of new otherworldly force super-powers, dark or light should be contained going forward. So, I believe now is the time to go on the offensive to find and stamp out those remaining that exist in hiding, who already believe in following the dark and seeking out those methods. Knowing that now there is no large nexus of power capable of supporting them, hiding them, for them to find and exploit." said Harry.

"Essentially, I think that for the first time in a hundred thousand years, the galaxy finally has the dark side, on the run. I think now if we chase the remainder down, we can finally achieve what Luke perceives as the balance of the flow of the force, with the light simply guarding and the dark in retreat and gone for good, at least as any kind of dominant, gathered force. No pun intended." said Harry.

"You really think there are more hidden out there?" asked Chief Dorvan.

"Well, I don't know if word made it back to you yet. But, in our own newly expanded territory, we found an entire planet of ten thousand Sith, calling themselves the "Lost Tribe of Sith." They are actually the group that Grand Master Skywalker encountered on his road to discovering Abeloth and where they picked up their newest recruit from, Vestara Khai who defected from them to help him and his son Ben during those fights. They had been living in secret and in seclusion for about five thousand years until a number of years ago when they suddenly received the means of space travel again. Since then, they do as Sith do, they'd been planning, and readying an army and a fleet of ships, designed to come out into the galaxy and wage war again. We would likely not have discovered them, other than the small force Master Skywalker encountered, until they moved on their full offensive, which appeared to be imminent when I found them. If it weren't for the information that Ms. Khai gave us." said Harry.

"I assume then you've moved to contain them?" asked Chief Dorvan.

"I have. And that is a very good way of describing it, for the time being." said Harry, as he then went on to briefly describe his quarantine of their planet. Their initial attempt to challenge it, and the destruction of their wing of Blastboats.

"So, I inquired of the senior Jedi, about what they knew of other past Sith strongholds. They tell me that the GA government, nor any of its predecessors would have the resources for a campaign of that nature. But, I am willing to foot the entire bill and take care of it directly. I want to see the Sith and all evil and dark forces put down. You could say that ever since I was born, dark lords have been my specialty." said Harry.

"Very well. I was nearly convinced of the efficacy of this argument and approach by former Chief's Solo and Sebatyne in the first place. I will agree with you conditionally, in that as you and the Jedi discover worlds and territories that are ostensibly in GA space, but as you say, untamed and unpoliced by us, that you believe you want to take control over for this purpose. That you consult with this office first, so that we can agree with you in consensus before you act in any permanent way. Until then, you have our leave to go to those places and conduct your investigations; and of course use force to defend yourselves as prudent. I will take this proposal to the Senate. Given the current mood regarding the Jedi and the force in general, I think they will approve, with the stipulation I mentioned." replied Chief Dorvan.

"Thank you Chief. I look forward to working with your government in partnership on this." replied Harry, diplomatically, shaking the Chief's hand.

"Yes. Thank you Wynn. We appreciate it. I think with Emperor Potter's help we might actually get this galaxy well and cleaned up for good this time." said Luke, shaking Chief Dorvan's hand.

...

With that ball rolling, Harry returned everyone to Atropos, where the next stop would be everyone's planned attendance at the wedding of the century. Jedi Master Jaina Solo, called 'The Sword of the Jedi,' to Jagged Fel, Chief of State of the Imperial Remnant. Chief Fel was about to hand over his Head of State position to former Admiral Vitor Reige, the first democratically-elected Head of State of the Imperial Remnant after Fel dropped out of a three-way contest with Natasi Daala. The wedding would take place aboard the Hapan Battle Dragon, Dragon Queen II, a few weeks later. Harry and Hermione attended both as State guests and as friends of the family of the bride.

The End

of Part One

-currently, I do plan a Part Two. But I might take a break from this story for a while to work on, finish, and publish a couple others that have been languishing on my computer for a few months.

Epilogue:

Not too much so as not to spoil Part Two.

1\. Harry will go on to secure and round up all the Sith. Including the One Sith on Korriban. Along the way he rolls up a little more territory in the galaxy that becomes part of the AE. He tucks the Sith he finds all away on Kesh, using it as a Sith and other dark-side force users, penal colony planet from there forward. A move that becomes very popular with the galaxy. Not so much on Kesh itself.

2\. After some period of time, something happens :-) and Jagged Fel resumes headship of the Imperial Remnant and is named Emperor, the first in a long line of Emperor's of the new Fel Empire and Fel dynasty.

3\. Vestara Khai never betrays the order and Ben and they end up getting married. Now you know in my AU where Ben's line comes from going forward.

4\. Allana goes on to have an interesting future of her own.

5\. Harry locks up the Maw tight, just like he said. It doesn't become a problem again. Abeloth and the Ones truly are dead.

6\. The Avalon Empire stabilizes, and both within Triangulum and the rest of the Local Group of galaxies a golden age ensues.

-How far into the future will I start Part Two? I don't know, but obviously there will be come time skip.

-Will I finally get around to adding arc's like Mass Effect and other games, or stuff I've repeatedly said no to because I don't know enough about any of them to do it any justice? No. Unless-I decide to try a reality bending route, but I still swear that if I try that, I will not be able to do justice to those other worlds that I do not know enough about. So, don't hold your breath.

A/N:

-The activities of the "Lost Tribe of the Sith" will be entirely AU now. Forget what you saw them do in SWEU if I didn't already use some of it. They are up to their assholes in alligators now that Harry is on their case.

-Abeloth is dead ahead of schedule from fanon, so the events where she impersonated Senator Rokari Kem and that entire conspiracy never happened. In my story, Luke and company got to her a little ahead of schedule and put paid to anything else she had cooking. The Kesh never got attacked by Abeloth either. Vestara Khai never had a chance on Coruscant to redeem herself to the Kesh Sith by betraying the Jedi Order, so she is still on the run from them; and as I said in the mini-epilogue, remains true to the Jedi and Ben.

-None of the things stated in SWEU from 127 ABY happened, with the possible exception of the birth of key individuals. The Ossus project never happened because the AE took care of it. Therefore there was no Sith-Imperial War, and no rising of the One Sith, since they've been in Kesh jail for a long time already.

-Where the SWEU AU goes from here in my story, therefore will be entirely made up. I hope you don't hate it. But, if you do, I'm sorry? I hope to show a little of the future of characters that just dropped out of the SWEU story after 44 ABY. But, other than the characters themselves, what I do with them is entirely me from now on, obviously. Also, when I do Part Two, I hope to get back to the other, non-Star Wars stuff; and possibly some other new stuff.

-The Freedom Flight slave uprisings in Klatooine and Blaudu Sextus never happened since they are in AE space, so for continuity we shall just say that the necessary SWEU equivalent events happened elsewhere in GA space so that their overall subsequent political events occurred as normal. (The where and how is not important to this story because it's just not...just the result...Mandolarans acted as mercenaries for Daala, Daala got coup'd, Fett broke her out along with Tahiri who goes on to become Jagged Fel's 'Hand'...who knows if we'll see any of them again in my story ;-).


	37. Chapter 37

A/N: I know I said I planned a part two. But, midway through part one I changed track on some ground work I was laying for part two, so those ideas are out. Then when I sat down to write something else I went through several draft outlines before I realized I do not have enough for a real part two. So, I'm just going to try to give you a detailed epilogue designed around a chronology to let you know how things went in Harry's empire in the out-years. The further out this goes, the more it becomes a crack-fic epilogue because incredulity must ensue. But, this is all just for fun right? Doesn't have to be serious or even fair.

Epilogue

Timeframe: 2036, ABY 50

Six years later. The Sith penal colony on Kesh was home to all the Sith and dark-side force cults they could find between the efforts of the Avalon Empire, the Jedi, the Galactic Alliance, and even the Imperial Remnant and Hapes Consortium, had gotten aboard, with some extra-curricular help from the Mando's. Once the word got out that the AE was sponsoring the effort and that the Galactic Alliance was supporting it, everyone else got enthusiastic and chipped in to help.

The only major organized cult they found was one calling itself the 'One Sith,' led by Darth Krayt, who was a Jedi named A'Sharad Hett, once a friend of the young Anakin Skywalker. By the time he and his group were captured on Korriban, there were almost thirty of them. When Luke saw him, he gasped...having recognized him as the 'Dark Man' from Jacen's visions and the one who met him in beyond shadows to help him defeat Abeloth.

There had been no doubt anymore in anyone's minds that this anti-Sith effort led by the AE was the right and proper thing to do. If the AE hadn't taken the lead on the effort, what might this Darth Krayt and his One Sith, been allowed to grow into? They were all safely ensconced on Kesh. Between those two groups of Sith, and all the Nightsisters that the Lost Tribe themselves captured and took there, one could only imagine what life must have been like on Kesh.

During the process the AE took control of several regions of space, and added them to the Avalon Empire Protectorate. The largest of course was the entire Esstran sector otherwise known as 'the Sith worlds' of the ancient Sith empire. Additionally, several ancient Sith worlds that had not been otherwise re-habilitated since the ancient days were also taken into AE custody, including a few planets in the core regions. One was Tython and another was Lettow, in the deep core. Another was the Melachor V remnants in the Outer Rim that was now just an asteroid belt, but had a very dark past. And Tund which was already in the AE expanded territory, but hitherto its past had been unknown to the AE. There were others but those were the major ones.

They knew that they would never eliminate all dark-side use of the force. Especially, since all that really was at the basic level was any force-user's use of negative emotions and negative motives to fuel their power. They would try to educate against that and nip it in the bud where it most occurred of course; but the largest aim was to prevent power centers surrounding a Sith cult to emerge.

As another effort aimed at prevention, the AE beamed away from Kesh all of their starships, weapons, tools, and other materials used for making or repairing starships; including all light-sabers and holocrons. Additionally, they began deploying light amounts of psychological warfare by broadcasting in galactic G rated TV programming and other entertainment, minus any programming of a violent nature.

Timeframe: 2041, ABY 55

Five years after that, an aged Admiral Daala tried one more time to restore Palpatine's version of the so-called 'New Order' Empire, by leading a conspiracy of several like-minded anti-reformist Moff's in an attempt to assassinate both Chancellor Vitor Reige and the perennial Empire darling Jagged Fel; then they would seize power. The conspiracy succeeded in killing Chancellor Reige, but Daala was killed by Jaina in self-defense and the Maw Irregular fleet seized by Fel loyalists. The Moffs who conspired with her were given death sentences, and Jagged Fel then decided to just seize power himself in an effort to finally get the place under control, therefore transforming the Imperial Remnant into the new Fel Empire, beginning a new Fel Dynasty.

In the years to come, there would be a number of other changes to the political map of the galaxy due to one last failed war waged by envious Chiss nobles, other new alliances, and a variety of inter-marriages between the ruling families of the AE, the Hapes Consortium, and the Fel Empire.

Their were still some Chiss nobles who bristled at the power and prestige that Jagged Fel achieved and so they led a secret arms build-up and launched their own campaign against the Fel Empire. The Fel Empire, having not been an ally of the Galactic Alliance at that time, accepted an offer of assistance from the AE. After which the Chiss were quickly conquered by the AE and the Protectorate annexed the remaining space trail ward of their border all the way around through the rest of the galactic west to the border of the Fel Empire.

The Chiss and the other handful of independent worlds that existed in that region of space would be the first since the Aerie, that the AE had to forcibly subdue and take control of for the good of peace and stability. By that time both Jagged and Jaina were starting to get old and they frankly never wanted to have to seize back control of the Empire in the first place. They only had done it because they felt it needed to be done for peace. Purely by coincidence, their son Roan had married Emperor Potter's granddaughter, Duchess Hermione Livingston, daughter of Princess Lily Potter, some time ago.

Therefore with Roan's blessing since he was heir apparent, Jagged and Jaina requested that Emperor Potter accept a petition from the Fel Empire to merge into the Avalon Empire, believing that with the marriage between their two families, the people on their side who cared about such things, would be pacified that the lineage of the Fel dynasty would continue through them. They simply wanted peace and stability to settle in, the reforms to continue that they implemented a while back, and all the other benefits of membership in the AE. By that point after the various insurrections over the years, their were no serious hard-liner Moff's of the old crowd left. But, the Fel's would help the AE get a good read on everyone in power at the local level so they wouldn't have a repeat of the problems they'd always had.

Similarly, there was another convenient marriage. This time it had admittedly been arranged to a degree, not by the elder Potter's though. Allana Djo Solo married Emperor Potter's grandson, Harold II, son of Crown-Prince James Potter and Rosaline Creevey; who would one day be in line for Emperor after his father. That arrangement was done by the two of them for the purposes of merging the Hapes Consortium into the AE, with the urging and backing of Allana's aging mother, the Hapan Queen Mother Tenal Ka Chume'da Djo.

That was a major departure from the millennia old matrilineal rule of the Hapan's but, Tenal Ka herself had more than enough of the old crowd's thinking dating back to the days when they tried to murder her for having the wrong parents and her own grandmother having tried to murder Allana as well. She simply wanted for the Hapan's to become part of the AE and put all of what she thought of as asinine internecine nonsense to the side. She had just enough power to see it done before she would abdicate the crown to Allana, after her marriage; and after having inked said agreement with the AE. She felt the old-timer's would still protest, but she didn't believe for a second that the AE could be subdued by any of them. Once it was in hand, it would be too late for any of the naysayer's to do anything about it. And it worked out just like she planned.

After seeing the efficacy of how those marriages and their close ties brought more influential leaders closer together. Harry actually did set out to arrange one marriage. Well, it had been more of a strong suggestion really. If they ended up dating and eventually marrying, it was totally on them. The AE had done well by Lando Calrissian, making him and Calrissian Enterprises into a trillionaire within the Galactic Alliance. Lando and his wife Tendra only had one son, 'Chance' (Lando Jr.), and he'd had only one child himself, a daughter named Lucy Tendra who they called 'Lucky.' Lucy was quite beautiful and the sole heiress to the Calrissian fortune and businesses they controlled throughout the Galactic Alliance. So, Harry might have suggested to his grandson Colin Potter (son of James and Rosaline, therefore also Ginny's grandson) that he should go 'check her out.'

The rest became history of its own making once again. And the Potter family had regained control of most of the other popular businesses throughout the Galactic Alliance and AE space that dealt in AE technology. So that between Granger Industries and Calrissian Enterprises, along with them now controlling Muunilinst, which also held nearly all the reserve precious metals and controlled the galactic banking system for the entire galaxy, including the Galactic Alliance. What the AE didn't already outright own in terms of territory and directly control through it's government and security forces, it now indirectly controlled and practically owned through business and banking.

Harry never really expected or wished actually to completely absorb the entire Triangulum galaxy into the AE when he started out. Maybe that would happen someday anyway. But, he did want to spread their benevolent hegemony over all of it so that many millennia of hope, growth, peace, and prosperity could over take the galaxy.

Timeframe: 2086, ABY 100

With the manner in which the political and financial circumstances of the galaxy seemed to be shaping up, it began to look like they might be able to keep a handle on peace for the future. With all of the big mergers of royal families and trillionaires, it almost went without notice that the Skywalker-Solo clan again married into the Potter family, when Mara Skywalker, Ben and Vestara's daughter, married Prince Charles Potter. Mara's brother Joseph went on to marry Patricia Katarn and had two son's Kol and Nat who were all busy still focusing their lives around the growth and success of the Jedi Order.

By 2087, Harry hated to have to admit it, but his own family plus his extended family had already grown so large he was having difficulty keeping track of everyone personally. He tried, lord knows he tried. He lapped up having the largest family possible. But, that was another side effect of his race living a thousand years. He hadn't even considered or seen yet if any of the new generation would have more than one set of kids. He knew that he and Hermione didn't plan on it. But, everyone else was on their own in that decision. Physically they could have many kids throughout their lives if they wanted and the population would explode exponentially since the birth rate would be ten times the mortality rate, or something like that. He was counting on their longevity in his grand plan to rapidly re-populate their race.

But, on the other hand, wow. It was a lot to keep track of. And the Empire itself had grown so large with the addition of so much of the additional territory and larger populations of Triangulum, that he decreed another re-organization of their over-sector governance. To spread out the work load more, and divide responsibilities. So, they did that and his High Council grew even more.

The grand one hundred year colonization plan to spread throughout Avalon was nearing its end. Just a few years left at that point. They had ninety-three hundred Alteran planets just in Avalon alone. The entire Alteran race was up to seventy-three thousand and spread out across many galaxies; most still right there at home of course. There were even over fourteen thousand trained Imperial Knights. Which prompted him to set forth another decree capping and maintaining them at fifty-thousand, which they anticipated hitting in just seventy-five more years.

Timeframe: 2099, ABY 113

In 2099, the inevitable happened. Harry and Hermione tried warning the leaders of the wizarding world. No one wanted to listen.

With the advancements of technology that began in their space programs and their planetary defense programs, eventually the fundamental science and other commercial applications of it made it to the masses.

The magical world had been detected by a number of laboratory experiments of universities around the world. They discovered large concentrations of vacuum energy, which the Alterans called zero point energy, in hundreds of locations all over the world.

Those shouldn't be there naturally occurring, so either the Alterans had generators of theirs all over the planet for some reason, or something else was going on.

Requests to Terra Legato on that matter were negative. So, investigations ensued. By the time it had made it up to EarthGov's executive office, it was too late to contain the discovery.

Several universities had reported in public news outlets and peer reviewed scientific magazines about their discoveries of this energy and their various theories as to possible causes. The public wanted to know what was going on and demanded the government investigate. Were they in any danger?

So, EarthGov confronted the ICW and told them that they could not keep their secret any longer. That through the propagation of advanced space-age science and technology, civilians now had the means to detect them.

This led to an uproar with the magical community and threats were issued and countered. The magical community, now dominated by purists and traditionalists, looked down their noses at muggles, regardless of how scientifically advanced they were.

With push coming to harder push, then the EarthGov Prime Minister made a speech to the world revealing the existence of magic, and of wizards and witches. He admitted that Earth's heads of state the world over for over a thousand years knew of them and kept the secret, just as it had fallen to his administration to do.

But that they would keep the secret no longer. Their existence was the answer to the question of the strange concentrations of vacuum energy that scientists were discovering around the world. And that the people, the witches and wizards were related as cousins after a fashion, to the Alterans, as well as themselves.

There was an uproar over the government keeping it secret. But the uproar was distributed around the world because the secret had been kept by leaders around the world for all that time.

The wizards for their part were still trying to hide, but their suppression wards did not mask their fundamental energy signature. They were still in denial and lacked the understanding to form a basis for acceptance, until the theory met real life.

In the beginning, intrepid investigators, out to make a name for themselves went around to local areas trying to narrow down and pin point precise locations, to find the wizards 'first hand.'

The initial efforts were somewhat amusing to those who could witness both ends of it, because muggle investigators with technology in hand would walk right up to the gates of Hogwarts and similar locations worldwide, and physically be restrained by the objects, but still unable to see them with their eyes.

Events like this became more common the world over, until it led to passersby in the streets of Hogsmeade or similar magical villages elsewhere in the world, where one would run right into the other.

Eventually, the wizards having grown up believing they had a right to remain going unseen, coupled with a superiority complex, and finally from among those possessed dark and militaristic tendencies. Fights began to break out.

Wizard and witch gangs occasionally began revealing themselves, to pick fights with muggles. Using their magic to cause widespread mayhem and fear. Normal magical government efforts to contain it began failing. Not enough obliviators; and soon muggle law enforcement wouldn't stand for it any longer when it was the magical people who started the fights in the first place.

Skirmishes started breaking out between muggle law enforcement and magical law enforcement, with their gangs on both sides, in the middle and usually the instigators.

In less than a year, it had raged into full-blown global street war between muggles and magicals. Many people were dying on both sides and muggles had begun resorting to the only weapons they could use that would counter the wizards, weapons of mass destruction that would also put a blight onto their own countryside's.

...

The escalated war did not last long before Harry and Hermione came to the EarthGov and offered to put an end to all of it themselves. They also broadcast their decisions to the ICW and some of the other magical world regular contacts they had.

The Avalon Empire would annex the entire Earth magical community, forcibly removing them from the planet and would provide them their own planet to live on however they wanted.

Harry made a speech that was seen by both sides in real time, in which he was quite angry and told the magical communities that he was fully aware how angry they would be at him for intervening, but he did not care. He was utterly disappointed in them and had enough of their abusing their gifts and their power. The only way to see that peace was served was to remove the approximate two million of them and separate them from the other roughly eleven billion non-magical humans on Earth.

He also explained that their magic would not be able to prevent the move from occurring. He would set up an appropriate planet for their relocation, including replicating many but probably not all of their normal way of life on Earth. Then when the AE arrived it would come in ships that would dampen their magic for everyone's safety and then beam them and all their belongings directly and securely to one of many Colony class ships, which would take them to their new planet and resettle them.

He said that they would forward instructions via their ambassador to the ICW to be distributed world wide to the magical community. Those who wanted the best and most comfortable move possible, and ensuring that nothing of their possessions were missed, should cooperate to the fullest and they would have the most successful move. Those who fought it and didn't cooperate will still find themselves moved, but the Empire would not be responsible for anything of their's that went missing in the process.

...

That is how and why in 2101, ABY 114, the entire population, including magical creatures and the other magical races of the wizarding world of Earth was forcibly relocated by the AE to their newly terraformed paradise planet in the Avalon Galaxy, in their own remote star system devoid of any other life than their own, called Oz. Well, that is what Harry called it. He rather thought they would name it something else, but for as backward as they choose to be, they would forever live in Oz on the AE books.

Naturally the ICW terminated their treaties with the AE and their would be no more of their people moving to Terra Legato or elsewhere in the AE to live as Alterans. Harry was unconcerned because at the same time he signed a new treaty with EarthGov, for the AE to take off their hands going forward ALL new muggle-born zpe-sensitive's that wanted to come live with them and any other relevant stragglers.

Harry just placed Oz under their protection from inter-stellar threats and other than that left a series of social research satellites there to keep an eye on them and told them, whenever they cooled down and were ready to talk like adults about their situation, they would still be there. The people of Oz were none to happy with Harry and the Avalon Empire, which included some of their own relatives of course. But, policy was policy. None of Harry's subjects in the AE that were related to those moving from Earth to Oz opposed the policy, because none of their people were physically being harmed in any way. They were actually saving them from themselves and the muggles in the long run, and now they were free to live as they liked without any muggle interference.

Timeframe: 2200, ABY 214

By 2200 all of Harry and Hermione's original friends from their generation at Hogwarts had all passed on. All of their children would live thousand year lives like Harry and Hermione would, and they got to know many of them as well but, it wasn't the same.

The AE population of full-blooded Alterans had grown to four-hundred twenty-three thousand and fifty-seven souls. And of course by that time, all of the remaining human populations that were directly a part of their Empire (those in Avalon, or those colonies in other galaxies started by Avalon), all were considered Novah now, with all of them possessing the ATA gene for use of Alteran technology.

All of them also received the same education and occupational opportunities as full-blooded Alterans, but their life-spans were still in the one-hundred twenty year range. The previous cultural taboo (it was never illegal though) for Alterans to inter-marry with Novah and produce new hybrid offspring began to soften because it was believed that enough new full-blooded Alterans had been produced to assure the continuation of the species. And from then on over time, possibly more of their Novah population through back-crossing, might begin to evolve faster toward greater life-spans and begin to evolve zpe-sensitivity and eventually evolve to the same advanced physiology of full-blood Alterans.

The AE controlled about half the territory albeit only one-third of the population in the Triangulum galaxy. And their were only the two major powers there, both stable. The newly re-minted Galactic Republic and the Avalon Empire. The Jedi world of Atropos, since forming its own independent government with most Jedi having settled there permanently and started families, had grown to a population of thirty-five thousand. Harry and Hermione missed their long since departed friends from that galaxy: Luke, Mara, Leia, Han, Lando, and Tendra. But, each of them had children or grandchildren that inter-married with the Potter family and were part of the Potter clan now.

The mixing of Alteran bloodlines with Jedi bloodlines did not produce children with celestial super-powers. But it did produce some Alteran children that then possessed and passed on midichlorians in their DNA, and then those exhibited the gifts and abilities of both. In a practical sense it didn't add or take away anything of benefit from the full-blood Alterans, except that in the new hybrid children they would find it easier to grasp the mind-arts and developed a heightened sense of situational awareness over that of their other Alteran peers. Three-fours of Harry and Hermione's children intermarried with a force-sensitive, so a great deal of the Imperial Royal Family going forward would exhibit the blending of their gifts and abilities.

Timeframe: 2300, ABY 314

Eventually the memories faded of how the Avalon Empire arrived and over a mere hundred years or so almost peacefully swept across the Triangulum galaxy. The scientific and technological superiority of the AE was not missed on anyone in the galaxy at that point.

The point also was not lost on the great minds of the Galactic Republic that for as great as the Avalon Empire was, it was still a monarchy at the very top. Not a Republic, as they were, and therefore they felt the AE was morally beneath them. Tensions began to form over that issue. It was not really a problem except when the Galactic Republic people wanted to make it one because the AE simply didn't saber rattle or ever talk like they were trying to expand into more territory. Whenever they would argue the point with the AE, they would just remind them of their thousands of years of history. Sure, they were a Republic, except when they were not. It was frankly fifty/fifty how long one of their Republic's would last, any time there had been one. Each transition costing their region of space billions or trillions of lives, misery, and re-building. They still had quite a lot to prove for themselves.

Nevertheless, many of the people living in the GR became more and more envious over the freedoms and quality of life in the AE. There was no slavery and no human trafficking in the AE. Even the Hutt's behaved themselves. One could not say that about all GR space, and of course, they were a Republic. So, it was that often there was pressure within the GR to again form it's own Empire, to centralize power and authority so they could achieve the same qualities of life that the AE did-without their contrarians continuing to be free to do what they wanted in spite of galactic law.

Some argued that the AE was only able to achieve that regardless of how they were politically organized because of their millions of years more advanced science and technology. One simply couldn't break the law in their controlled space without the government knowing, nor could anyone fleeing from the law in those circumstances, hide or defend against that technology. That the GR would not have those advantages if it once again became an authoritarian Empire, regardless of how benevolent in its intentions it hoped to become. Much of that argument was true. But, the people still wanted a better life in the GR. They wanted the same kind of lives people led in the AE.

Harry of course, was not one to attempt expansion by trying to go in and conquer a race. The few times they had to use force and violence was to put down a tyrant or protect someone from one. But, having said that. Harry had shown a great deal of cunning and patience, to accomplish the same by attrition.

Having noticed the change in political climate in the GR, Harry began to privately and secretly fund the non-militant political agitators within the GR who began springing up that would lobby the GR Senate from time to time, for it to consider petitioning the AE for a merger, for the GR to simply join and become part of the AE to reap the benefits of being a part of the great Avalon Empire. Harry wasn't beyond the desire to finish the job of collecting the entire Triangulum galaxy, if it could be done peacefully. So, since the opportunity began presenting itself, he nudged it along behind the scenes.

So, over the next fifty years, campaigns ensued throughout the galaxy intended to influence the masses toward wanting such a merger to take place. Carrots were dangled. AE culture was shared more openly with GR worlds, so that they could see what they were missing of course. Harry's secret funding of political movements continued. He would outlive most political opponents and their successors by a long shot, so he could afford to proceed carefully and with patience.

Timeframe: 2350, ABY 364

During the great Galactic Republic Senate Conclave of ABY 364, the GR petitioned and the AE accepted, the GR's membership into the Avalon Empire. As part of the deal, the GR Senate would continue to exist under a new name with an almost similar purpose as it had before. Modeled from the Great Inter-Galactic Economic Cooperative of the Furling Oversector, on the artificial throne world of Chandilar. Coruscant would become the same.

The AE would move it's Triangulum Sector Capitol to Coruscant and assume the seat of power for a unified galaxy. The major difference was that the AE divided up the Triangulum galaxy into five separate Oversector's within the larger Avalon Empire Imperial High Council. Coruscant would then be ruled by a Quintumverate Executive of five Imperially appointed Oversector Governor's, each with a seat on the AE High Council reporting to the Emperor. They would serve as the Triangulum galaxy Executive as Co-Heads of State, with the elected Senate serving as their Council and continuing to be responsible for writing laws, approving budgets, and so forth.

With that done, the Avalon Empire truly did essentially rule over all the known universe that they had surveyed, or that is all of which they chose to make a permanent presence in. If they didn't rule it outright, they controlled it through their outmatched influence and protection. Harry announced that the AE knew how to remove the hyper-space disturbance surrounding the Triangulum galaxy and that over a period of the next fifty years they would work to gradually remove that. (That would also give them fifty years to ensure that the rest of Triangulum space was fully tamed, ahem, assimilated and under new management before the doors got swung open).

There were now seven full Oversector's covering their entire holdings. There were seven each Civilian Governor's and Military Governor's to appoint. For a High Council total of fourteen people. Since he only anticipated any further growth coming organically or from renewed exploration and colonizing. And because the Imperial Royal Family had grown to support it, he re-organized the High Council such that Royal pedigree would be required to serve on the High Council and in one of those Oversector Governorship's. The Emperor would gain an additional title, being styled also as "High Councilor." Thus ensuring control would not slip from the fingers of the Royal Family.

Those Councilors would be the first in the Avalon Empire to be called after the title, Duke or Duchess; down to the third generation from the current ruling family of the age. With any child currently in line to the throne, or their heirs apparent to be called Arch-Duke's and Crown-Prince or Crown-Princess. Many of them already had Governorship's and other important positions, but since the number of Oversector's increased by two and they needed to re-organize again, Harry re-organized them as such.

Timeframe: 2400, ABY 414

Harry and Hermione thought for about a day about early retirement. But, they weren't even beginning to feel old yet, so they just said, no... and kept going.

With the entire Empire completely stable and open for travel and trade anywhere within the AE domain, many of the other habitable galaxies saw a lot of colonization from the enormous populations of the Triangulum galaxy, looking to spread out.

Harry lifted the long ago set moratorium on expanding into new galaxies and colonizing outside of their local group. All of their known flanks were then secure, so it was safe to do so.

Thus, he reinstituted the Colony-ship program on Javabli's moon, but opened up participation to any citizen of any world in the AE domain in the local group. He even invited non-member friendly worlds to participate, if they wished. This included invitations to Earth, the Kobol Republic, and others.

They decided they would run the same scale program as before, at a rate of one hundred colony ships per year. The difference this time, is that each would be accompanied by a full Task Force for their protection and support, and each new colony ship would be destined to found a colony in the best 'paradise' world they could find in a new unique galaxy. They would follow the path of the Destiny project began by their ancestors over fifty million years ago when it departed Avalon, thereby expanding on the same path from the nearest galaxies to the furthest away as they followed the path.

Destiny had explored millions of galaxies already and the Atlantis database had a wealth of information from its original exploration as well as the more recent relay surveillance and communication satellites that Harry had the Destiny put in place as it re-traced it's original path to catch up to where it left off, before continuing on. So, they knew which galaxies were safe to go into and which had good planets for prospects and which didn't. The colonies own missions would thereby be to grow and then further colonize, spreading out in their new home galaxy, expanding the Empire.

Timeframe: 2900, ABY 914

Five hundred years later, the Alteran Race under Harry's leadership had grown to a population of three point nine billion full-blooded Alterans, spanning over five hundred galaxies. Not counting the other eight trillion near-Alteran Novah of the Avalon Oversector, and the quadrillions of humans and other beings in the Triangulum galaxy which was still by far the most vastly populated galaxy any of them had ever seen.

Harry felt satisfied that he had restored the Alteran Civilization, they were spread out very far now. It would be quite the work for any race to find them all, much less destroy them all, at that point. His way of doing it might have been over doing it, but he wanted to make sure they never came that close to oblivion again.

Finally at the age of 920, Harry and Hermione decided to retire and turn over their crowns to the next generation. Therefore Arch-Duke Crown-Prince James Potter was coronated as Emperor and his wife, Rosaline Creevey Potter, Empress, with their son Harold II, named heir apparent. As tradition would have it, Harold II thereby transferred to Governorship of the Avalon Sector, the Capitol Sector of the Empire, where his father James had presided for the past seven hundred years or so.

As a means of making a farewell tour for their rule, the Father and Mother of the Avalon Empire, took the Capitol City Atlantis on an inter-galactic voyage touring the Sector Capitols of each of their member galaxies. So that the many natives of each galaxy that might never travel to Javabli, could see the great city of their ancestors and marvel at it. The city was over twenty million years old and could travel in space. It was a marvel of the most ancient of ancients and deserved the praise and attention it got. For most it was a legend come to life, having a chance to see it in person, or even to see it broadcast live on satellite TV from a world at least in their own galaxy.

That round trip took four years given travel time and time they decided to stay and spend in each galaxy visiting. Harry and Hermione were inter-galactic rock stars. When they returned home, Harry and Hermione decided on a simple life, retiring to where it all started for them, back at their grand estate back on Earth at Terra Legato. From there they would receive many guests and visitors over their last few hundred years of life. Including thousands and occasionally, millions of their descendants, gathering for some of the largest Yule celebration dinners you could ever imagine.

Harry and Hermione thanked god that they had an entire department at the Potter Family Office, to make sure he didn't forget any birthday's or anniversary's, which was literally a large daily task at that point.

After living over nine hundred years and watching the births and lives of some sixteen generations, they had over one hundred million descendants of their own. It was mind-boggling, but it is what happens when each person lives at least one thousand years. It was also certain that this Royal Family would not die out for lack of heirs.

The End

Epilogue to the Epilogue:

When it came time for Harry and Hermione to depart to the next great adventure, they ascended to join the ranks of The Others, as immortals, living for eternity on the higher plane.

A/N:

As of 2350, ABY 364

Avalon Oversector: (Capitol)

Civilian Governor-Arch-Duchess Rosaline (Weasley-Creevey) Potter

Military Governor-Arch-Duke, Crown-Prince James Potter

Furling Oversector:

Civilian Governor-Duchess Rebecca Potter Longbottom

Military Governor-Duke Neville Longbottom, II

Triangulum Oversector 1:

Civilian Governor-Arch-Duchess Teneniel Djo (Skywalker-Solo-Chume'da) Potter

Military Governor-Arch-Duke, Prince Harold (Weasley-Creevey) Potter, II

Triangulum Oversector 2:

Civilian Governor-Duchess Lily Potter Livingston

Military Governor-Duke Jagged (Skywalker-Solo) Fel, II

Triangulum Oversector 3:

Civilian Governor-Duke Charles Potter, I

Military Governor-Duke Ben (Skywalker) Potter, II

Triangulum Oversector 4:

Civilian Governor-Duchess Lucy (Calrissian) Potter

Military Governor-Duke Colin (Weasley-Creevey) Potter, II

Triangulum Oversector 5:

Civilian Governor-Duchess Leia (Skywalker) Potter, II

Military Governor-Duke Luke (Skywalker) Potter, II


End file.
